All Tomorrow's Parties 2009: Who Rocked the Catskills the Hardest?

For the second year in a row, the All Tomorrow's Parties festival rocked the Catskills, invading the quaint upstate Kutsher's Country Club. This is the resort that inspired Dirty Dancing, and the whole place reeks of Fifties charm: It's the only rock festival around where you can hear noise bands in the Starlight Ballroom, or see Nick Cave shuffling down a hallway lined with shag carpet in a tennis-ball motif. There's geese on the lake, mini-golf, a sauna, and an elderly gent playing "The Candy Man" on the organ in the lobby. It all adds up to some hardcore Catskills ambience — as you drive in on Route 52, you pass a kosher Chinese restaurant called "Mazel Wok."

For the roughly 2,000 fans on hand, it was a weekend of music delights. ATP remains by far the best organized, friendliest festival around. And at Kutsher's, it's also the one with the most indoor plumbing. (This must be the only rock fest where you couldn't use a port-a-john even if you wanted to.) Bands wander around, checking out each other's shows — for the No Age set, I was right in between indie director Jim Jarmusch and the lead singer of Deerhoof. Shellac organized a baseball game on the grounds for musicians and fans. This ATP was curated by the Flaming Lips, who did a fantastic headlining set on Sunday night, but the whole weekend was packed with goodies. There was no way to catch every band you wanted to see, but these are a few of the highlights.

Read our daily reports from Kutsher's here:
• Flaming Lips Wrap All Tomorrow's Parties After Sets By No Age, Boris
• Animal Collective, Deerhunter, Sufjan Stevens Bring Lullabies and Assaults to All Tomorrow's Parties
• The Feelies, Dirty Three With Nick Cave Revisit Classic Albums at All Tomorrow's Parties

Best in Show: The Boredoms, no question. They did their "Boadrum 9" piece with nine drummers, one of whom was carried onstage on a platform held aloft by fans. Instead of a free-form jam, it was an expertly paced set with staggering peaks, including a rampage through "Acid Police." The drummers formed an 18-arm behemoth; as our colleague (and monster drummer) Christopher Weingarten observed, Hella's Zach Hill was drumming so hard you could see the sweat dripping off his stool. The Boredoms ran on so long, the crew had to come out and dismantle the drums while they were still playing, but that somehow made it all the more majestic.

Best Sideman: Nick Cave, who sat in with the Dirty Three on piano, never uttering a word, just lending his magnificently sinister presence to the proceedings. It was what it must've been like in 1976 seeing Iggy Pop play shows with David Bowie on keyboards. The Dirty Three were amazing, with Warren Ellis playing violin solos while kicking the cymbals with his boot. Never seen that move before.

Best Nick Cave Sighting: At the arcade, playing video games with a friend's 14-year-old kid. It was one of those games where you fire a laser rifle — and Cave was smoking this kid. Bats? Released!

Best Duet: Bob Mould joined the L.A. punk dudes No Age for a set split between Hüsker Dü classics and No Age tunes. It was a generous move for Mould, considering these are songs he wrote 25 years ago, and he released a stellar new record just this spring. But like No Age, he was lit aflame by the spirit of the occasion, roaring his way through "Something I Learned Today," "Could You Be The One," "I Apologize," "Makes No Sense at All," and the climactic "New Day Rising." Deerhunter's Bradford Cox joined for an inexplicable yet entertaining romp through the Johnny Thunders oldie "Chinese Rocks."