Jeff Mangum (Neutral Milk Hotel) Live at All Tomorrow’s Parties (2012): His Dream Playlist Come to Life

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 3 October 2026

Location: Butlins' Resort / Minehead / England
Concert date: March 9, 2012
Attendance: 8000
Ticket price: 170/180 pounds

1. About the Festival

Think of your favorite musician or band. Now imagine a festival curated by your chosen artist. They open it and close it, so they play twice. And the only acts on the bill are the ones they pick and invite themselves. The bands that shaped them, the musicians that inspire them. They name their favorites as curators too, and those play twice as well. Sounds like a pretty inspired concept, right? Now imagine that on top of the music program, this festival also has a cinema. A cinema playing that artist’s favorite films and documentaries. And the artist has a whole TV channel where you can catch even more of their beloved series, movies and so on. Are you a book lover too? Well, say the same artist picks a few of their favorite books, which you can then discuss at book round tables with the authors or well-known critics. Sounds like the ideal festival, if not an outright utopian one. An artist’s entire inspiration, from every kind of art, in one place. And that place, believe it or not, already has a name. It already exists. And this fan utopia is called All Tomorrow’s Parties.

All Tomorrow’s Parties (the name is taken from a song by the cult band The Velvet Underground) delivers everything described above. Over the years (it’s been running for 12 years now) the musician-curators have been quite a mixed bunch – from 80s icons like Sonic Youth, through 90s names and curators like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, My Bloody Valetine, Modest Mouse and similar alternative, underground and otherwise defiant acts, all the way to the 21st century with The Mars Volte, Mogwai and others. Each with their own picks, films, books, vibe. Each with a new unforgettable experience. Besides the other locations that rotate around England and the world (ATP has its tentacles in the US and Japan too), the regular yearly home is Butlins holiday resort in Minehead, in southwest England, right by the sea. A pretty remote spot, and that’s putting it mildly. Our trip, mine and my travel companion’s, went like this: a flight to London, a night there, roughly 8 hours on a bus, a bus-to-bus transfer somewhere in between, occasional nausea from six straight hours on the road, drowsiness, a parade of animals in the gorgeous countryside outside London, Butlins resort. And upon arrival, luggage dumped in the apartment, hunting for the reception desk… Jeff Mangum. That very Jeff Mangum who, a little less than 15 years ago, vanished from the music scene together with his band Neutral Milk Hotel, leaving behind a huge mark, a deeply devoted cult following and one irreparable hole. It was Friday, March 9, 2012.

2. Friday

a. Jeff Mangum

We rushed into the hall 5 minutes before showtime. A crowd thousands strong blocked the view of the stage. Stale air and sweat, anticipation and excitement filled the room with an intensely tense atmosphere. Like those moments before a storm, only more intense and somehow suffocating. Even though the hall was almost full, people kept pouring in, out of breath, chasing the last train to the opening of yet another unforgettable experience. Finally the doors close, to the luck of everyone inside and the misfortune of those who came too late. The hipster crowd is already chanting the name of its god. And when Jeff shows up, gloomy as ever, with a look of disdain, since he never liked crowds, there’s a sort of confusion. Those of us there, aware of Jeff’s wishes (he didn’t want any photos or recording at his shows, for instance), his traumas and his attitude toward excessive fandom, didn’t know whether to greet him with cheers or with silence. With bowing, applause or hanging arms. But before we could decide, Mangum, with a simple »Hi.«, was already playing, and »Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2« rang through the hall. My skepticism about Jeff’s solo show and how he’d fill the gap left by the band was completely unfounded and beside the point. He simply doesn’t need anyone but his voice and his emotional pounding on the guitar. So the whole concert passed in a kind of trance, above all in a kind of disbelief that we were really watching Mangum, especially since most of us had run into the hall right before the start, with no time to prepare for what we were living through. As expected, the crowd went wild for »The King of Carrot Flowers«, probably the best-known song by Neutral Milk Hotel and the legendary »In the Aeroplane Over the Sea«. Quiet voices followed him through the rest as well, especially later, once the crowd came to its senses – on »Oh Comely«, »Ghost« and so on. Mangum played most of the tracks from »In the Aeroplane Over the Sea«, along with a few songs from the debut, the EP and the gorgeous »Engine«; a few times a brass and woodwind section and a singing saw joined him on stage. Taciturn as ever, Mangum gave the crowd few glances and few words, mostly just thanking us after each song, maybe now and then saying a word or two about how it came about. Which, of course, left the origin of the songs as mysterious as it always was. After about an hour of playing and a crowd that had finally come to, Jeff simply stood up, raised a hand in farewell and left. Jeff’s first, opening set at this year’s ATP felt like a mirage, and Jeff himself like an apparition, an eternal enigma. The crowd’s tight, constricted feeling only deepened, as if we weren’t fully aware of our own presence. The strange genius of the experience surely belongs to Mangum’s life and his work.

b. Joanna Newsom

The second curator was American weird folk singer and multi-instrumentalist Joanna Newsom. Always endearing, she was a real contrast to the dark and gloomy Jeff. Talkative, cheerful, radiating a bright positivity. That’s exactly why the crowd’s reception was so different from before. Relaxed applause, calm, even breathing and the occasional shout of »I love you!«, answered by Joanna’s sweet smiles, was the polar opposite of the earlier tightness and passive bracing for the storm. The contrast in mood was perfect. Still, Joanna’s set was no less intense or inspired for it. Despite plenty of slip-ups (especially in the lyrics), which Joanna turned into her strength with her natural charm, she wrapped up the solo set, moving between piano and harp and back again, with an incredible elegance you wouldn’t expect from someone so visibly worn out by the flight and the time difference. Joanna’s distinctive, piercing voice, which pricks your eardrums so gently that you can’t tell whether it hurts or not, was top-notch all the same, as was her astonishingly deft plucking of harp strings and pressing of piano keys. The receptive crowd followed the movements of her hands, her body and her spoken words with melodramatic love. It was real art – how she filled the hole Jeff left in us with her endearing presence, dreamy melodies and pleasant words. Awkward chattiness and a gentle gaze spiced up the show even more, with her thanking us, apologizing and playing straight to our souls over and over. Despite the stuffy air, the whole hall felt completely different.

c. The Raincoats

Since the shows came one after another on three stages with barely any time to rest, we rushed from the main stage to the so-called Reds stage, where The Raincoats were playing, a British post-punk band from the late 70s and early 80s. At Mangum’s request, the female-dominated band was supposed to play their self-titled debut album in full, which was also their most successful, most influential and, as a result and in many people’s view, their best. Mangum certainly thinks so. Exhausted from the endless trip and two hours of standing around, we slumped against a nearby pillar and listened in a kind of sleepy daze to the band’s danceable rhythms and the somewhat eccentric multi-part vocals. To our left a bunch of dancing hipsters formed, who kept up their polka-like moves despite the occasional classically dark post-punk passages. What surprised me most was the vocal side of the set, which has aged and is somehow built differently than on the album, maybe even better, since it doesn’t sound as raw as on record, but a bit deeper. The set was thrilling, no doubt about it.

d. Half Japanese

After The Raincoats we squeezed into the front row for the witty, naive 70s punk rockers Half Japanese, led by the incomparable Jad Fair. The set, full of energy, smiles, sincerity and lyrics about chasing girls, sounded really different from their albums. That’s mainly because Fair got to conjure up space-noise curtains of sound from his guitar, which he bashed uncontrollably and improvised on, at other times played a single string out of rhythm, and now and then abused the guitar in every way possible with his hand, his mouth, his belly and so on. The effects and the main guitarist allowed it, and the result was a truly fun show, an actually excellent overall sound from the band and a good dose of smiles from the crowd. Besides their own songs, they also played a Daniel Johnston cover, since he turned down Jeff’s invitation because of his own tour. Despite their age, Half Japanese kept the spirit of early punk rock, infused with the noise tricks of the 80s, and Jad Fair kept his voice in the same way. Boyish and playful, passively hyperactive, half-talking, half-singing. With a finale in the same spirit – with a completely stringless, broken guitar. So Half Japanese carried on an evening of fantastic performances.

e. Thurston Moore

After Half Japanese we rushed back to the main stage, where we caught half an hour of Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore to close out Friday. The hall was packed again, properly warmed up and thrilled by the set and by Moore’s anti-capitalist remarks and jokes between songs. No need to waste words on the musician himself, and the show was pretty average, except for a song or two. The songs were Moore’s own and not Sonic Youth’s, and the former are more of an acquired taste, for specific tastes and those undying fans. When it ended we headed for the cinema for a few dozen minutes, where the anime Spirited Away was playing, but we were too wiped out to stick it out to the end.

3. Saturday

a. Yamantaka // Sonic Titan

Saturday’s concert day was opened by the Canadian band Yamantaka // Sonic Titan. Definitely one of the bands that stands out most from the conceptual similarity of Jeff’s other picks, since at its core it’s a kind of progressive rock tribal band. The lead duo are a drummer and a singer, the first a Chinese Irish woman, the second a Japanese Scot, which is certainly an interesting combination and also the reason for the many Eastern elements in their music. This isn’t that weary, conventional prog rock either, since they throw a heap of ambient, new wave, electronic and noise elements into the mix. But the biggest step away from any labeling is the vocals of little Ruby Kato Attwood, helped by the lower tones of Ange Loft, who together make a phenomenal and unique duet. The two musicians call this genre fusion noh-wave. So far they’ve released a self-titled debut album that got plenty of praise and favorable reviews. But the live show is on a whole new level, higher than the superb album. Visually backed by costumes, masks, painted faces, dark shadow play, ritual movements and above all the unbelievable energy of the leaping Ruby Kato, it left the crowd slack-jawed. Live, they played the entire first album and a new track continuing the self-propelled genre of noh-wave. This hybrid of Radiohead’s electronic technique, Steven Wilson’s guitar riffs and the Far Eastern melodies of Ruby Kato’s hypnotic vocals is certainly the new giant of the rising alternative music scene, defying the capitalist idea that art is pointless.

b. Mount Eerie

After Yamantaka // Sonic Titan we waited on the same stage, called Crazy Horse, for the solo artist hiding behind the alias Mount Eerie (otherwise Phil Elvrum). Phil Elverum is best known for his work in the indie noise rock band The Microphones, while as Mount Eerie he made his name mostly with the wonderful album The Wind’s Poem, where he mixes his interesting lo-fi folk with drone and black metal. This time, though, he was alone with his guitar and two amps. After the explosive set from Yamantaka // Sonic Titan, Elvrum was yet another contrast. Calm, softly distorted guitar lines combined with Phil’s dreamily beautiful voice soothed bodies full of adrenaline and sent them into a hypnotic, meditative state. Truly beautiful lyrics about solitude, human emotions, nature and sound are real poetry, and sung and accompanied by psychedelic lo-fi guitar effects they came across even more strongly and carried us off into dreams. Despite a feeling that maybe something was missing in terms of the fullness of the sound, the crowd was thrilled, and Phil left to a wave of applause.

c. Earth

After Mount Eerie we hurried to the Reds stage, where American drone pioneers Earth played, who even worked with Kurt Cobain (the band’s guitarist reportedly even bought the shotgun Kurt killed himself with, buying it for him for self-defense). The band, which has evolved over the years since the 80s, went from a heavily distorted, smeared drone sound to more psychedelic stoner sounds, with cleaner, more distinct arrangements. The repetitiveness of the playing style is broken by unexpected entrances from the cellist, who adds an atmospheric dimension to the somehow menacingly beautiful guitar lines. This set was pretty average, as was the song selection. Live, the repetitiveness is even more in the foreground, but this time it was a bit less interesting than on the albums, or rather the band didn’t manage to make the repetitiveness non-monotonous, which is normally their specialty.

d. Scratch Acid

Saturday’s concerts ended on the main stage with noise rockers Scratch Acid. The mostly calm shows up to then finally got their antithesis. The packed hall pressed against the iron barrier in front of the stage, people were nervously primed to go nuts. Despite all the intensity of the individual shows, the highlights and the excellent performers, they were waiting for something totally primal, for mindless jumping to rebellious noise, for shoving in the crowd, for the frontman’s crowd surfing, and Scratch Acid gave them exactly that. Uncontrolled madness, security constantly stepping in, a hopped-up singer playing Steve Anderson, who added a snapped belt or two, an unbuttoned shirt, a smashed mic stand and so on, and above all noisy rock that turned the calm, practically self-declared sophisticated hipsters into an adrenaline-filled, instinct-driven mob. And that’s what they needed. That’s what we needed. It was refreshing to give yourself over completely to a sea of elbows, bang your head at the air, scream the choruses at the top of your lungs. When your temporary idol becomes Steve Andreson, a singer who in that moment is the idol of the entire crowd, gaining a new follower with every leap into the audience and every newly undone shirt button. In an extended set, where we called them back to the stage several times despite the organizers’ grumbling, the band gave everything, every last button, every belt around the pants, every drop of sweat. Such an immersed performance is rarely seen, and that kind of pervasive crowd energy is surely one of a kind. Don’t get me wrong – the night ended without any injuries or riots. The hipsters didn’t take the smashing in their heads out on actual objects, and instead returned to their earlier quasi-sophisticated form.

4. Sunday

a. Boredoms

Sunday afternoon was opened by the Japanese avant-garde experimental whatever-they-are Boredoms. Even before ATP started, you could read that Boredoms would show up on stage with 14 guitarists, five drummers and one conductor. Fourteen guitarists! Five drummers! A crazy concept. A kind of orchestral noise rock. But Boredoms were so much more than that. Classical-music style, the conductor, singer, mumbler and screamer Yamantaka Eye steered them from ambient passages into unbearably intense peaks, full of indecipherable psychedelia, triumphant marching drums, noisy distorted curtains of a single chord… The effects on listeners varied widely. From reaching nirvana and rebirth, through manic excitement and near nervous breakdowns, to practically burst eardrums for those standing right by the speakers. The brilliant bipolarity of the music through noise and silence, serenity and nerves, simplicity and complexity, the ordinary and the bizarre left most listeners, despite the different effects, with a similar conclusion: » I had to leave early. It was genius, but just too intense.« I heard that comment in various versions from most of the people there and my opinion is the same. It was brilliant, but too intense, so I left before the end to save my sanity.

b. Lost in the Trees

Lost in the Trees are a slightly oddball folk band from America, a kind of freak folk with a Thom Yorke copy on vocals, who with very simple but sincere lyrics and witty, relaxed modesty have been filling the ears of everyone willing to listen for quite a while. A nice reputation drew a nice little group of people to the Crazy Horse stage (the smallest venue, by the way), where their pleasant and at times unusual folk music delighted both the standing and the sitting. After each song they got big cheers, especially after probably their best-known »Walk Around the Lake«. For us, though, it was mostly time to rest body and mind after the frenzy of Boredoms.

c. The Olivia Tremor Control

To warm up before the festival’s finale we caught The Olivia Tremor Control too, a band from the Elephant 6 label, which Mangum’s Neutral Milk Hotel is also part of. A sort of modern The Beatles, beefed up with effects and a few extra members, they’re completely different from Neutral Milk Hotel even though they share a label, and Jeff Mangum was also part of the lineup at the very beginning. Despite sound problems, which mostly plagued guitarist and co-vocalist Will Cullen Hart (who was also the constant target of inside jokes among the band members), the band managed to create yet another All Tomorrow’s Parties party. The varied setlist included, to everyone’s delight, the seven-part »Green Typewriters« from what is probably their best album, Music from the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle. Definitely one of the most interesting acts for the biggest Neutral Milk Hotel fans, since The Olivia Tremor Control is a big part of Jeff’s musical history and legacy. The show was good anyway, and it was a pleasure to watch the witty banter within the band, which the people dancing in front of the stage let them know they appreciated. After the gig we headed almost immediately to the front of the hall where Jeff Mangum would play later, and so started a line nearly 100 meters long, even though Mangum’s set was still two hours away.

d. Jeff Mangum

Jeff Mangum. Finally, the way it should be. Ready, thrilled, full of nerves and anticipation, we watched with envy those who had missed Friday’s concert and so got special wristbands that let them skip the »regular« line. Still, we managed to get into the second row, maybe three meters from Mangum’s chair. A bit calmer now that we had an excellent spot, we started looking around and clutching our heads when we saw people calmly sitting down at tables in the slightly raised back rows. The audience was much more relaxed this time than the first. They’d survived the first date, and now they were ready for the second, knowing what to expect. And yet Mangum shattered every illusion of the »expected« the moment he walked on stage. The depressive, emotional »Oh Comely« threw us right back to Friday and its mood. Mangum was once again uniquely himself, and with a pretty similar setlist he added two songs that stood out in particular – Daniel Johnston’s »True Love Will Find You In The End« and the only post-Neutral Milk Hotel song he’s ever played publicly – »Little Birds«. Toward the end the mood turned more and more into a kind of cozy, melancholy excitement, as if we’d finally peeked into Jeff’s heart and Mangum wasn’t slamming the door shut on us right away. Mangum merged with the rhythm of the crowd and the crowd with the rhythm of Jeff’s guitar, the hall became one, everyone’s closed eyes allowed their own visions of unlimited imagination, which somehow all connected into one bigger dimension that we were all part of. And Mangum felt it too. Because when he finished with »The Fool«, he stood up, started thanking us sincerely and gave us one very special encore – a real, honest smile. That alone was worth the exhausting trip behind us and the one ahead, all the money, all the worries. Because when Jeff smiled, every one of us smiled too. Purely on instinct, purely spontaneous and therefore completely genuine.

All Tomorrow’s Parties is more than it promises. It’s not just a peek at some musician’s taste in music, movies and books. It’s their permission to step into their world, their mind and their heart. It’s a musician sharing all their inspiration with total strangers who came for good music and left with an unforgettable experience.

Setlist

Jeff Mangum (Friday, March 9, 2012)

1. Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2
2. Holland, 1945
3. Song Against Sex
4. Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone
5. Engine
6. The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1
7. The King of Carrot Flowers Pts. 2 & 3
8. Oh Comely
9. Ghost
10. Naomi
11. April 8th
12. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
13. Two-Headed Boy
14. The Fool

Jeff Mangum (Sunday, March 11, 2012)

1. Oh Comely
2. The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1
3. The King of Carrot Flowers Pts. 2 & 3
4. Song Against Sex
5. A Baby for Pree
6. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
7. Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2
8. Holland, 1945
9. True Love Will Find You in the End (Daniel Johnston cover)
10. Ghost
11. Little Birds
12. Engine
13. Two-Headed Boy
14. The Fool