Winterliches Südengland

6. bis 10. Dezember 2012
Somewhere in Sussex and Kent

Wetherspoon Pub im ehemaligen Opera House

Auf dem Weg nach Camber Sands, wo wir natürlich die meiste Zeit unserer 4-tägigen Englandtour verbrachten, machten wir für die erste Nacht auf halber Strecke Halt in Royal Tunbridge Wells, einem alterwürdigen Kurort der feinen englischen Gesellschaft. Den Abend verbrachten wir im Opera House, das in seiner vollen Pracht zum Pub umfunktioniert worden war. 

Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells, die Kurpromenade

Tunbridge Wells Wildlife

Das Kultur- und Shoppingprogramm des zweiten Tages galt dem ausgesprochen hübschen Rye mit seinen hübschen Lädchen, den stolperigen Kopfsteinpflasterstraßen und seiner schönen Lage am Wasser.

So kurz vor Weihnachten konnten wir dann gleich das Schöne mit dem Nützlichen verbinden und kräftig Geld ausgeben.

Parish Church St. Mary in Rye



Camber Sands

Einer der schönsten Strände, den ich je gesehen habe.

Sonntagetee in Salts Farm Shop

 

Auf dem Rückweg Richtung Heathrow Airport fuhren wir noch ein gutes Stück an der Küste entlang und verbrachten ein zwei Stündchen im Seebad Hastings.

The National @ ATP-Festival (E)

9 December 2012
The National ATP festival curated by The National, Camber Sands, southern England
Attendance: around 3000, sold out

Sunday night 11 pm, after three days of music and more music, a few pints, microwave dishes, a lot of tea with milk, beach walks and karaoke in the Queen Vic the curators of this year's ATP festival were about to start their own show to finish the fantastic weekend in East Sussex with an even more fantastic final gig. All three days the five guys of The National had appeared again and again in all places as listeners to the other bands and guitarist Aaron Dessner had also constantly stepped in as guest musician. You could tell that all of them had had a lot of fun with their whole mise-en-scène. Until then it had always been easily possible to walk almost to the front of the stage a minute before the beginning of a set. This time the front part of stage didn’t empty at all right after the end of the gig of Local Natives. The audience had saved some last energies for the grand finale. People in the first two rows had probably not left the room since late afternoon. Almost on time the band entered the stage as always very calm unagitated and with a little unglamorous preshow music.

At that moment we all had already lost the bet on the opening song. Matt Berninger set down his cup; the contents looked very much like beer, though he is usually known for a nice glass of wine and the fitting bottle with it. Second thing he did, he asked for more light. He quickly had to prepare his text and informed the audience that he intended to read the entire show. Even though he has a very sexy speaking voice, the man must be joking. Of course, he was singing and they started straightaway with new material. It had been almost exactly one year ago that The National had completed their 20-month High Violet tour. A few months ago there were a few posts that they had been in the studio, but a release date of a hopefully worthy follow-up album to High Violet was still a big secret. With professed perfectionists you never know how long it might take. So it was wonderful to have the ATP to kill some waiting time with The National giving us a short view behind the curtain on some of their raw versions that will get polished and refined in the near future and you can’t even be sure that they will even make it on the album. It didn’t take more than the second song, "Mistaken For Strangers" from the Boxer album to realize that we were surrounded by native speakers and The National diehard fans. The room began to vibrate. Word perfect and powerful voiced the audience joined in singing every line. Due to the outdated structure of the whole building with everybody jumping and singing I got a little nervous. Unfortunately, at this moment there were a few sound problems (a general problem of Stage One). At "Anyone's Ghost" Matt's voice drowned in the opulent instrumentation. Matt himself also gave another explanation for the obvious weaknesses of the vocals that usually gives you shivers: his "stupid Daughter" had sneaked into his bed 5 days before they came to England. He had her lying next to him and when he yawned, she annoyingly coughed right into his mouth.

They managed to get ahold of the sound problem after a while and fortunately also Matt’s beautiful deep voice didn’t get strained, albeit he had to fight with slight limitations. The excellent audience choir also helped a lot. The vibes were fantastic and more than infectious. The large ATP family celebrated the final party of a triumphant weekend and the band was happy. Happy about an audience that made it really easy for them and happy that they had had the chance to spend so much time with all the other musician friends on a legendary weekend. Some of said friends were also introduced as guest musicians for their set such as Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire, who had played three completely different sets of his own over the three days as well. Owen Pallett joined them playing his mind-blowing violin backing the semi-new "I Need My Girl" and the wonderful "About Today". 

The song selection was very close to a set list of an average performance during the last tour. Considering the fact that most people in the audience must have seen at least one gig of the tour, there was no reason to still promote the High Violet album. So the setlist itself was a bit disappointing. I would have loved to get a few more rarely played pearls from the older albums. But at least we could participate in the absolute premiere of three and a half new songs. The second new song however didn’t work at all with the audience and the band definitely was a little disappointed. Matt made his jokes, claiming that the title of the song that had just flopped was "Buttered Bun". At least twin guitarist Aaron started to grin broadly. The following "New Song No. 3" turned out to be much more successful. Rough and unpolished, with an engaging melodic chorus, the typical The National drums, noisy Dessner guitars and the final power of Boxer songs like "Abel" and "Mr. November ". However, it would be almost suspicious if a song by The National fully worked at first listening. In my experience, the pieces need time to grow on you, every time you listen to a song it gets a little bit better and after a while it will never leave you again. Also, the risk of getting tired of a song can almost be eliminated. Somehow I thought it was pretty interesting that the choir compared to the rest of the songs didn’t work so well when they stroke up with "England" a song that I appreciate a lot. Whether the English resent that the "famous angels" never make it to England? The first encore "I Need My Girl" is incidentally also part of the raw material, but had been tried out live a couple of times before. It was noted that in the final part the drums were nicely edited, which significantly improves the song, but it still did not change the fact that the song is just nice average.

The brilliant conclusion after almost two hours then made the unplugged version of "Vanderlyle Cry Baby" already well-known from the second part of the High Violet tour, in which Matt Berninger (notabene without a mic) took a final bath in the crowd conducting his 3.000-men/women-choir. What a lovely, lovely weekend! Or to say it in Matt Berninger’s words: Thanks a lot! We had a blast!

Setlist The National @ATP-Festival Camber Sands:
1. New:„Lola“
2. Mistaken for Strangers
3. Anyone's Ghost (mit Richard Reed Parry)
4. Secret Meeting
5. Bloodbuzz Ohio
6. Conversation 16
7. Squalor Victoria
8. Slow Show
9. New: „Sullivan“ or Buttered Buns
10. New „Prime“
11. Green Gloves
12. Sorrow
13. Abel
14. England
15. Fake Empire
  Encore:
16. I Need My Girl (with Owen Pallett)
17. Mr. November
18. Terrible Love
19. About Today (with Owen Pallett)
20. Vanderlyle Crybaby Geek (unplugged)

The National @ ATP-Festival (D)

9. Dezember 2012 ATP-Festival Camber Sands, Südengland

 Sonntagabend 23:00 h, drei Tage voller Musik und mehr Musik, einigen Pints, Mikrowellengerichten, viel Tee mit Milch, Strandspaziergängen und Karaoke im Queen Vic lagen bereits hinter uns, als die Kuratoren des diesjährigen ATP-Festivals mit ihrem eigenen Auftritt das grandiose Wochenende in East-Sussex zum krönenden Abschluss bringen sollten. An allen drei Tagen waren die fünf Herren von The National an jeder Ecke als Zuhörer und vor allem Gitarrist Aaron Dessner auch immer wieder als Gastmusiker aufgetaucht und hatten sichtlich Spaß an ihrer Inszenierung gehabt. War es bis dahin auch immer problemlos möglich gewesen, bis kurz vor Beginn eines Sets weit nach vorne zu laufen, so leerte sich der vordere Teil von Stage One bereits nach den Local Natives so gut wie gar nicht mehr. Das Publikum hatte die letzten Kräfte bis zum Ende aufgespart. Die ersten beiden Reihen hatten den Saal vermutlich schon seit dem Nachmittag nicht mehr verlassen.

 Fast pünktlich betrat die Band wie immer sehr unaufgeregt und unglamourös mit etwas Preshowmusik die Bühne. Die Wette über den Eröffnungssong hatten wir in diesem Augenblick bereits alle verloren. Matt Berninger stellte seinen Becher ab, dessen Inhalt verdammt nach Bier aussah, wo man ihn doch sonst nur mit Weinglas und Weinflasche kennt und bat um mehr Licht. Er musste noch schnell seinen Text präparieren und klärte erst mal darüber auf, dass er vorhabe die gesamte Show lediglich vorzulesen. Auch wenn er über eine sehr sexy Sprechstimme verfügt, der Mann beliebt zu scherzen. Natürlich wurde gesungen und es wurde direkt mit neuem Material gestartet.
The National hatten vor ziemlich genau einem Jahr ihre 20-monatige High Violet Tour beendet. Vor einigen Monaten gab es ein paar Posts, dass man im Studio wäre, aber wann es genau einen hoffentlich würdigen Nachfolger für High Violet geben wird, steht momentan noch in den Sternen. Bei bekennenden Perfektionisten kann das unter Umständen noch eine Weile dauern. Umso schöner, dass es zur Überbrückung der Wartezeit das ATP gibt und uns The National schon mal einen Einblick in ein paar ihrer Rohfassungen geben, die in nächster Zeit noch poliert und geschliffen werden und von denen auch noch gar nicht sicher ist, dass sie es überhaupt auf das Album schaffen.

Spätestens beim zweiten Lied, dem vom Boxer Album stammenden „Mistaken For Strangers“, wurde dann klar, dass wir uns in einem Muttersprachlerland unter eingefleischten The National Fans befanden. Der Saal begann zu vibrieren. Vollkommen text- und stimmsicher sang das Publikum jede Zeile mit. Aufgrund der Bausubstanz der gesamten Anlage wurde mir etwas mulmig. Leider stimmte zu diesem Zeitpunkt der Sound noch nicht so richtig (ein generelles Problem von Stage One). Matts Stimme versank bei „Anyone‘s Ghost“ in der opulenten Instrumentalisierung. Eine weitere Erklärung für die erkennbaren Schwächen beim sonst so Gänsehaut verursachenden Gesang gab Matt dann auch noch selbst: Seine „stupid Daughter“ hatte sich 5 Tage vor Abflug in sein Bett geschlichen und als er ihr gegenüber lag und gähnte, habe sie ihm ärgerlicherweise direkt in den Mund gehustet.
Das Soundproblem besserte sich zum Glück und auch die Stimme hielt, wenn auch mit leichten Einschränkungen. Dank des exzellenten Publikumchors war das letztlich auch gar nicht so schlimm. Die Stimmung war gigantisch und mehr als mitreißend. Die große ATP-Familie feierte die Abschlussparty des gelungenen Wochenendes und die Band war glücklich. Glücklich über ein Publikum, das es ihnen wirklich einfach machte und glücklich, dass auch sie selbst mit all den befreundeten anderen Musikern ein legendäres Wochenende verbringen durften. Ein paar von besagten Freunden hatten dann auch noch Gasteinsätze wie Richard Reed Parry von Arcade Fire, der selbst drei vollkommen unterschiedliche Sets an den drei Tagen gespielt hatte und mit The National recht eng befreundet zu sein scheint.

Wahnsinnig toll war auch Owen Palletts Geigeneinsatz beim halbneuen „I Need My Girl“ und beim wunderschönen „About Today“. Die Songauswahl entsprach weitestgehend der Setlist eines durchschnittlichen Auftritts bei der letzten Tour, was in Anbetracht der Tatsache, dass wahrscheinlich die meisten Besucher die Tour gesehen hatten und es keinen Grund mehr gab das High Violet Album in den Vordergrund zu stellen, etwas enttäuschend war. Man hätte sich an dieser Stelle einfach noch ein paar seltener gespielte Perlen aus den älteren Alben gewünscht. Immerhin durften wir aber an der absoluten Premiere von dreieinhalb neuen Songs teilhaben. Der zweite neue Song funktionierte beim Publikum allerdings überhaupt nicht und die Band war erkennbar ein wenig enttäuscht. Matt scherzte darüber hinweg, indem er behauptete, dass der Titel des gerade gefloppten Lieds „Buttered Bun“ sei, was bei Zwillingsgitarrist Aaron ein breites Grinsen hervorrief. Weiter ging’s mit „Neue Lieder Drei“ und das dann auch deutlich erfolgreicher. Rau und ungeschliffen mit packendem melodiösem Refrain, den typischen The National Drums, krachigen Dessner Gitarren und der Schlusspower von Boxer Liedern wie „Abel“ und „Mr. November“. Es wäre allerdings schon beinahe verdächtig, ein Lied von The National beim ersten Hören voll erfassen zu können und direkt gut zu finden. Nach meiner Erfahrung müssen die Stücke erst mal im Zuhörer reifen, werden bei jedem Hören noch ein kleines bisschen besser und dann lassen sie einen nie wieder los. Auch die Gefahr sich daran zu überhören kann nahezu ausgeschlossen werden. Irgendwie interessant fand ich auch noch, dass beim von mir sehr geschätzten „England“ im Gegensatz zu allen anderen Stücken kaum mitgesungen wurde. Ob die Engländer wohl verübeln, dass es die „famous angels“ nie bis England schaffen? Die erste Zugabe“ I Need My Girl“ gehört im Übrigen auch noch zum Rohmaterial, war aber live schon häufiger ausprobiert worden. Es fiel auf, dass im Schlussteil gründlich an den Drums gearbeitet worden war, was das Lied deutlich verbessert, aber noch immer nichts daran ändert, dass der Song einfach nicht über ganz nett hinauskommt.

Den wirklich fulminanten Abschluss nach knapp zwei Stunden setzte dann die auch schon aus dem zweiten Teil der High Violet Tour bekannte Unplugged-Version von „Vanderlyle Cry Baby“, bei der sich Matt Berninger (wohlgemerkt auch er ohne Mikro) noch ein Schlussbad in der Menge gönnte und seinen 3.000-Mann/Frau-Chor dirigierte.

What a lovely, lovely weekend! Oder um es mit Matt Berningers Worten zu sagen: Thanks a lot! We had a blast!

 

 

Setlist The National @ ATP-Festival Camber Sands:

1. Neu: Arbeitstitel „Lola“

2. Mistaken for Strangers

3. Anyone's Ghost (mit Richard Reed Parry)

4. Secret Meeting

5. Bloodbuzz Ohio

6. Conversation 16

7. Squalor Victoria

8. Slow Show

9. Neu: Arbeitstitel „Sullivan“ oder auch Buttered Buns

10. Neu: Arbeitstiel „Prime“

11. Green Gloves

12. Sorrow

13. Abel

14. England

15. Fake Empire

 

Encore:

16. unveröffentlicht: I Need My Girl (mit Owen Pallett an der Violine)

17. Mr. November

18. Terrible Love

19. About Today (mit Owen Pallett)

20. Vanderlyle Crybaby Geek (unplugged)

 

Richard Reed Parry hat noch bei einigen anderen Songs assistiert, aber leider konnte ich nicht mehr klären, bei welchen und auch Nico Muhly wurde auf die Bühne gebeten.

Und auch hier nochmal herzlichen Dank an das famose Konzerttagebuch für die Erstveröffentlichung.

ATP Festival curated by The National (E)

7 - 9 December 2012 Camber Sands, southern England

(auf deutsch)

Perfect size for a festival , sold out, with probably a little less than 3000 people

I first found out about "All Tomorrow's Parties” - ATP for short - a London based promoter when Belle & Sebastian had their their Bowlie 2 two years ago. For many years now ATP have invited musicians / bands in to curate on of their fine little festivals. The picked artists are pretty much given free rein and it seems to be an honor to be chosen. Unfortunately when it was Belle & Sebastian’s turn I couldn’t find any friends who liked the band or the idea of the festival as much as I do. But this year in January when The National announced that they were going to curate an ATP Festival in December the wintery England trip together with two friends was immediatelly fixed. Due to contractual problems with the originally planned venue in Somerset on the West Coast, the festival was moved to the much smaller summer Seaside Resort Pontins in Camber Sands on the south coast. Good for us: Camber is only about two hours away from London Heathrow. Small meant less than 3000 guests which is a pretty good size for a very small and familiar festival. The festival ticket included 3 days of music and 3 nights at the resort. They had no day passes or tickets without the overnight stay. The whole event felt a bit like summer camp with 16 and with The National as scoutmasters.

Richard & Bryce listening to Local Natives

The National: The curators of the event, of course, so vitally important that they get their own report.

 

The lineup: It almost reads like a "who's who" of the global indie scene with a focus on Brooklyn, peppered with a little (modern) classic (Nico Muhly, The Kronos Quartet, Hauschka) and cherished music pioneers (Michael Rother, Boris). As a friend of folk-rock and also of more quiet sounds, not to mention as a huge fan of The National, there were of course plenty of bands to my liking, so I went without plunging into the history of electronic music. There were a few bands I already knew quite well (Sharon van Etten, Wye Oak), or at least a bit (My Brightest Diamond, Kathleen Edwards, Richard Reed Parry, This Is The Kit, Hayden), others were totally new to me Menomena , Luluc, Bear In Heaven, Local Natives) and a few others had to be sorted out due to the schedule and the unfortunatelly limited attention span at a festival (The Antlers, Dark Dark Dark, Lower Dens, Owen Pallett, Deerhoof and even some more). For the musicians it must have felt like a kind of highschool reunion: friends, relatives, acquaintances, who had accompanied The National in recent years. Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak) complained about her still bothering jetleg but had to admit that she had to blame herself since she hadn’t been in bed earlier due to all the nice friends she was meeting here. And Kathleen Edwards was quite happy that she had met long time friend Hayden again, who had not shown up on stage for the past five years.

 

The stages: The whole event took place in the main building of the now rather dated resort. Pontins Camber Sands somehow seems to be famous for its good entertainment programs in the summer time and has two large venues, both equiped with cozy filthy carpets, solid bars and in the bigger one even with a hotdog stand. Stage 1 with a capacity of approximately 3,000 people and Stage 2 takes at least another 900 spectators. Unfortunately the sound in Stage 1 sometimes left a lot to be desired. In Stage 2 everything has always worked well and even with the smaller capacity there was no bottleneck at anytime. Not for a single gig you had to be there more than 5 minutes in advance and still got a spot in the front third. There also was a pretty ageing amusement park in the main building that still found its friends and then a cozy, albeit empty cleared pub for the after-show parties and for relaxing in between the shows. However we were only 3 minutes away from our heavenly nightmarish apartment.

 

The security: A big difference to what we are used to back home: no grim glances, no wannabe macho posturing, no bag checks and body searches! Very relaxed and totally friendly. After two days, the guys knew your faces and gave you a warm welcome, they opened the doors for you and gave away their candy. Quite apart from that there were no separate and inaccessible artist areas. That's exactly how I fancy a perfect festival atmosphere.

 

The chronology of my music: At the very beginning it didn’t work out too well with Nico Muhly and us, too demanding for our ears. So the real start was Canadian singer / songwriter Hayden Desser, who was very happy to be back on tour after a hiatus of five years. He handed in a folky, rocking, really lovely first set with a few new (the album has been announced for February) and a few old songs.

Hayden

After a short break we got some very good impressions of contemporary classic playing New Yorker Kronos Quartet in stage one before we went on to listen to the second part of Luluc.


Male part of Luluc

Luluc are a duo from Melbourne, who seem to live mainly in New York. One of my discoveries: great female voice, very classic songwriting. Matt Berninger (frontman of The National) was in the audience. Within the following days his presence showed up to be a good indicator in terms of my personal taste in music.

Bear In Heaven

I had somehow heard of Brooklynites Bear In Heaven before, but I had no idea of their music. It turned out to be very coherent, perfectly matching the moods synthpop stepped up with some loud guitars and very good drums. A brilliant Friday night finale.

Richard Reed Parry, multi-instrumentalist of Arcade Fire opened our Saturday with his second of three sets, a nice, nature-loving folk show.

Richard Reed Parry

Meanwhile Lower Dens from Baltimore shrouded in almost complete darkness on stage one, a very interesting version of shoegazing. While listening to Jana Hunter's voice and viewing her dimly lit appearance I'm asking myself if I’m not seeing a pretty small male person in front of me. Lower Dens are exciting, but it's still a bit early in the afternoon. The highlight of the second day: This IsThe Kit. Kate Staples and her band were in great spirits. I love her voice and that perfect feel-good sound. According to the program notes Aaron Dessner is going to produce her new album (to be released in 2013) and so it is not surprising that he appeared on stage for three songs.

This Is The Kit

Canadian Kathleen Edwards looks quite well-behaved, especially when she picks up her violin. In fact she uses the f-word in every other sentence and tells us her story when she got totally wasted in London a few days before and fell asleep in the bathtub and after about an hour her longtime-tour-roomie (her keyboarder) got in panic and had to safe her. A witty, fine gig to end her Voyageur tour 2012.

Kathleen Edwards

Sharon van Etten didn’t have a very good day. She also did not look happy at all. Of course Aaron Dessner showed up on stage to join his protégée for her song "Ask". There were some problems with the sound in stage one as well. Tramp still remains one of my albums of the year and I hope that SVE will finally come to southern Gemany one better day.

Sharon van Etten

Pretty bulky, fat instrumentalized indie rock from Menomena from Portland to end the Saturday. I thought it was quite fascinating how one of the two vocalists could sing very well and at the same time serve his drums.

Menomena

For us the third day - Sunday - was opened by My Brightest Diamond. Just wow!

The Philistine Jr.

The Philistine Jr. the band of The National's producer Peter Kadis and his brother Tarquin are funny and Perfume Genius a little later sounds sonorous, but rather boring.

Perfume Genius

I was very much looking forward to Wye Oak. They rock, are fun and it's very fascinating to see the musical explosions of a band of only two members.



Wye Oak

The Local Natives from LA entered the big stage just before The National. What a perfect support act: psych folk, awesome drumming, a great discovery and again Aaron Dessner has his fingers in the pie as well.

Local Natives

DJ set of the Devendorfs: Unfortunately we were not able to make it very much longer on our first night. The National’s rhythm section - Scott and Bryan Devendorf – were supposed to deejay and Scott started way after midnight. We can’t even say if Bryan made it to the turntables later on. Die-hard Depeche Mode fan Anni had made the prophetic prediction that her favorite band would definitely be part of a DJ set of her second favorite band. When the prophecy came true with Scott playing “Enjoy The Silence” as his forth song we decided to leave and test the gravel mattresses for the first time of the weekend.

Scott at the turntables

The most emotional moment: Shara Worden aka My Brightest Diamond dedicated her song "I Have Never Loved Someone", which she had written for her son, to the cherished curators. Her singing, the melody and especially the clear lyrics flipped an unknown switch and I couldn’t hold back the tears for minutes.

Shara Worden

The bars: The English are very patient and drink a lot. And at some point also the artists were forced to queue at the bars. It could happen that suddenly Aaron Dessner was standing next to you or Hayden was desperatly mumbling that he was always invisible at a bar. At least he was in possession of a valuable 20-pound note when we asked him. During his performance he had told the audience that before his departure he had been very lucky to find plenty of English money from long-ago trips in his foreign money jar but when he got to London and wanted to buy his first pint the money turned out to be worthless.

Karaoke: Every night the Queen Victoria Pub turned into everybody’s stage for a few hours. Actually we just wanted to have a brief look but before we knew it, we sang along with ablout 80 other indie nerds and hipster chicks to Bonnie Tyler's “Total Eclipse Of The Heart”, Bob Dylan's “Like A Rolling Stone” or even Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called To Say I Love You”. Even the security could hardly contain himself and somehow it happened, that we let The Antlers be The Antlers and ordered another pint at the bar of the pup.

The chalets (nice English pronunciation): To be housed in small very, very sparsely furnished apartments that you would not even want your kids in for a summer camp, turned into a very bonding situation. Matt Berninger (singer of The National): "We curated everything for you not only the music but really everything … We sew the mattresses by hand and filled them with gravel and small pieces of wood." And when I think about it the whole story actually sounds pretty realistic. I had never read so very bad reviews on relevant hotel rating websites. In fact, it could only get better and at least it was fairly clean, the linens were fresh (ironed and you had to put them on yourself) and the electric meter in our apartment was broken, so we didn’t have a limit and started warming up the whole environment and after the first night it was toasty warm inside. Very interesting, you had to buy your electricity in advance and slip those little token cards 1 Pound each into the meter to get light, hot water and heating. Our biggest problem was the bathtub with separate faucets in cold and boiling hot and no separate shower head. I could be solved sisterly. You just needed a second person to wash your hair who filled a pot of water at a pleasant temperature and served as the quasi shower head. "I feel like being back in the 18th Century "! Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak also got to the heart of it: "Living in those chalets ... it's like a childhood dream ... gone wrong." The Pontins Camber Sands’ mantra: everything’s better than a tent, everything’s better than a tent, everything’s better than tent ...

The knit jumper: This time of year the British hipster wears a knitted pullover decorated with pre-Christmas ornaments. The models vary from glittery knitted snowflakes, abstract 80s patterns and cute reindeers. Hopefully this trend will never make it to the continent. Kathleen Edwards expressed her thoughts a little clearer in a recent Twitter message: "Just wanted to mention that all you dudes in England sporting the" ironic Christmas sweater "look, you look like a bunch of assholes."

The festival cinema: Camber Sands Memorial Hall is situated on the opposite side of the road just outside of the resort probably some kind of community center. During the three days you can watch high quality footage chosen by the curators in there using a video projector with screen. The well-educated and sophisticated guys of The National had provided some a pretty ambitious program. Very exciting that they had even picked two German films: "The Lives of Others" and a documentary about the painter Gerhard Richter. The Richter movie fitted well into our schedule on Sunday afternoon, there was no language barrier and it was really interesting. Besides us only a handful of other festival goers were also in the mood for a subtitled cultural program.

The beach: A dream! If only England was famous for stable summer weather!

Rye: The next bigger town is the beautiful Rye with its medieval cobblestone downtown, a defiant church and one cute little shop after the other all of them very English. Definitely worth a Saturday morning trip in bright winter sunshine.

London Heathrow: The gates are given out on short call only a few minutes before boarding. All passengers on international flights spend the time in a huge waiting hall staring at the display boards. Funnily right there I met three music nerds from my hometown, who are also waiting for the announcements of our flight back from the most amazing festival weekend of our lives.