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By Anthony Bromberg

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

A music festival is a loud thing, with people running back and forth to see all of their favorite acts bang out half an hour or hour long sets. Music festivals have overpriced drinks and food. And every night of the festival there is a closing act that more people want to see than anything else, and that act is present, usually.

All Tomorrow’s Parties Saturday festivities, certainly had the requisite overpriced aura, and had many noisy bands playing at Royce, Ackerman, and even Kerckhoff, but one thing it may not have had was an actual headliner. The Saturday shows seemed to be geared towards exemplifying the curating band, Sonic Youth’s, avant-garde noise-based hipness. All of the acts seemed to have an element of jam in their repertoire, and while it was the shows most varied night in terms of different kinds of performers, the improvisational aspect provided a common thread. The atmosphere of the festival was less rigid and more laid back than Friday night, but musically the constant experimentation over traditional song-based structures at times grew a tad bit boring and tiring. Nonetheless, it was a show worth seeing.

The acts included everyone from the hip-hop duo Cannibal Ox, to '70s straight ahead rockers Big Star, to noisemakers like the Boredoms, and even maybe IDM behemoth Aphex Twin.

At the center of it all once again was Sonic Youth, with its members taking part in various different projects throughout the night. The guitarists Lee Ranaldo, and Thurston Moore both played in extended jam sequences.

Moore, went on Ackerman’s stage with Mats Gustaffson, William Winant, and Nels Cline. The four blasted through Ackerman’s loud speakers with a combination of saxophone, multiple percussion instruments, and guitars. The set was adventurous and long, highlights coming at certain moments when Gustaffson’s sax broke above the tumult, or Cline’s guitar found its way to something bordering on recognizable guitar notes.

Big Star’s set seemed oddly out of place as Alex Chilton and crew kicked off the set with their song that is now best known as the "That '70s Show" theme, and then continued with their straight ahead anthems.

Two of the night’s other more traditional acts were Sleater-Kinney, and Cannibal Ox. Sleater-Kinney rocked Ackerman ballroom with convincing riot girl earnestness, playing mostly new songs to an energetic crowd reception. Cannibal Ox, while the only hip-hop act on the bill, melded nicely with the other acts, and were a crowd favorite. They didn’t abandon the spirit of improvisation, including in their set some freestyling, and an interlude with their DJ working impressively on the turntables. At the same time their raps never took on the monotonous droning quality that some of the avant-garde acts slipped into.

The night’s most intriguing set, though, was played by Aphex Twin. Or was it? As a long line waited outside of Ackerman Union frenetic, electronic music blasted inside the Grand Ballroom. Onstage, alternately, a masked man, or a girl danced around with goofy body movements, while their large shadow was projected onto a blue backdrop. The crowd was heavily into the music dancing wildly around, and filling Ackerman with a hazy aroma. The music was steeped in drum and bass style, which isn’t usually associated with Aphex Twin, and it contained more looping than his usual studio recordings, which suggests he may have been there, but for anyone who got there late, could barely see the stage over the large crowd, and never saw the man himself come out, the third night of ATP ended on a musical high, and a strange performance.

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