SPIN

The New Jersey shore is a beach hotspot in the summer, but by the time the I'll Be Your Mirror edition of All Tomorrow's Parties commenced in Asbury Park over the weekend, both the sky and ocean were as gray and forbidding as the southwest coast of England, home of the festival's guest curators Portishead. A half hour after SPIN arrived, the skies opened up, drenching queued fans, soaking the dilapidated brick façade of the Paramount Theater and Convention Center, and curling the slat edges of the Boardwalk. It was perfect Portishead weather, for sure.

Thankfully, after the Friday downpour, the rains withdrew for most of Saturday and Sunday, and another adventurous, multi-faceted festival took place. Here, we rank the best shows of the three-day weekend. Greetings from Asbury Park, indeed.

Waving the freak flag in Williamsburg, Brooklyn since the late 20th century, Oneida set up at the fringes of the festival for an ever-evolving, open-ended eight hours of music and noise. The trio turned five-piece turned jam session have been cutting such long tapestries of mesmerizing psychedelic rock for years, and with the recent shuttering of their recording studio -- warehouse space Monster Island -- this installation felt all the more crucial. A matter of scale defines Oneida (as did the bumper sticker on one of Fat Bobby's keyboards that proclaimed: "I Love Airplane Noise"). What might be a peak moment for most live bands is but a spike in the continuum for Oneida. Their noise was an echo of the Atlantic Ocean, which was a mere stroll away, rising, falling, and forever flowing. Guests ranging from Yo La Tengobassist James McNew to Portishead's Adrian Utley (guitar) and Geoff Barrow (drums) all stopped by over the course of the day. -- ANDY BETA

The Awesome Tapes From Africa blog/label imprint does what every great DJ does, winning over a crowd by sheer force of vision. And at ATP, Awesome Tapes founder Brian Shimkovitz actually performed as a DJ, although the rattling of pins in the Asbury Lanes bowling alley was louder than the ruminative Francis Bebey track that opened his set. Yet via only what looked like a tackle box full of cassettes, Shimkovitz slowly built from thumb pianos to blaring Public Enemy sirens to machine-gun female shouts (that'd be Aby Ngana Diop!). Despite not knowing the language, much less being able to source most of the music (save for visiting the ATFA site), the entire crowd was ecstatic within an hour. -- AB

Shellac began with the stage dark, introduced only by a blast of guitar that kicks off their song "Canada." And then the lights came on and hey, there they were: Guitarist Steve Albini, bassist Bob Weston in orange pants, and drummer Todd Trainer, mugging and primitively pounding out a jagged rhythm. The group is an ATP staple, but their intensity, mixed with a kinda charming curmudgeonly streak (Weston told people to put their phones away), and surprisingly goofy on-stage hi-jinx (between song rapid fire Q&A sessions with the audience, lots of humorous running around) doesn't ever get old.The improvisational take on "Wingwalker," with a mid-song X-rated spoken-word and even some choreography, was transcendent. And so was "The End Of Radio," Trainer raising a snare drum to the Asbury Convention Hall lights as Albini's nervous rant paid tribute to that particular piece of the drum kit. "Rock n'roll will never die," some dude behind me sincerely uttered at a peak math-rock freak-out. I don't know about all that, but yeah, when Shellac's working it out on stage I can see how you'd come to that conclusion. -- BRANDON SODERBERG

There was the cathartic din of their dystopic beats and Mr. Len's scratching and the headrush intensity of El-P and Bigg Jus' syllable-packed rhymes, but it was the group's sideways catchy hooks and a room full of hip-hop heads' willingness to shout those hooks back at the group that made the show. See, Company Flow were one of those abrasive rap crews that just knew how to turn a simple, sometimes rhyming, hard-ass chant like, "I want to be paid, MC, berserker" into its own kind of earworm. And so, the cathartic shout-alongs to "Blind," "Vital Nerve," and encore, "8 Steps To Perfection" were set highlights and festival highlights as well. This was only the third Company Flow show in ten years, El-P told the crowd, a little surprised. Later, he thanked us all for "still giv[ing] a shit," which is pretty modest coming from one of the most influential underground hip-hop groups of all time. My pleasure screaming your rhymes back at you, Mr. Producto. -- BS

Colin Stetson stood alone on stage with a massive bass saxophone, exhorting fluttering waves of noise that turned, just like that, into a beautiful melody or what sounded a wailing death siren. Sometimes there was what had to be percussion and even singing -- an eerie, lost-sounding vocal -- and since he's the only guy up there and it's all happening at once, there must be some backing track or sampler Stetson's toying with, but no there isn't. This is all at the same time emanating from his sax. While fascinating to watch, the music was gut-level intense, too. It was probably because he was performingcuts from his recent album New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges, and the ragged fancy-ness of the Paramount Theatre and his last name -- Stetson, like the cowboy hat -- but thisdark, swirling music created an unshakeable, doom-laden western vibe, like the soundtrack for a never-to-be-made film version of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. This is the kind of thing Earth thought they were doing on Sunday. -- BS

The Bowery to Sonic Youth's Broadway, Michael Gira's Swans defined what New York noise meant during the 1980s, offering up a gritty and brutal variation on detuned guitars and pummeling percussion. It's no small feat that most Swans concerts ended because the NYPD shut them down. After some years of focusing on his own more folk-tinged (and less-decibeled) group Angels of Light, Gira resuscitated Swans in late 2010 with a new album and a world tour that has to be one of the loudest acts around. Bathed in blood red lights, the six-piece built up percussion, droning guitars, sharp swaths of pedal-steel guitar, and towering chimes (struck by aptly monikered percussionist Thor), as Gira howled at the gods for two hours. Cathartic, ecstatic, brain-clearing. Lou-tallica should take notes. -- AB

"I don't have anything to say, so I'll just keep singing," Jeff Mangum announced midway through a Friday night performance that bordered on a Sunday service. Mangum's rare utterance beyond the music spurred even more "Jeff, we love you!" proclamations. That same crowd then sang along with fervor as he strummed the opening chords of In The Aeroplane Over the Sea opener "King of Carrot Flowers." The former Neutral Milk Hotel frontman even flashed a genial smile.

Much like hisappearance -- Applejack cap, work shirt, corduroy pants -- Mangum was low-key, belying the fanfare of his return to performance after a decade-long absence. With just an acoustic guitar, he delivered on the crowd's expectations, strumming with quick assurance and singing more effectively than ever. Other times, he held notes until they smeared into raw sound, or sang with a clear intonation that harkened back to English and Irish folk. "Two-Headed Boy," in particular, seemed to foretell Mangum's silence, as the notoriety of his work trapped him in a bell jar of his own making. Who wouldn't cherish singing along with Mangum as he testified:"I am listening to hear where you are." Perhaps being able to perform such songs so convincingly will liberate him to record music anew. Though the crowd belted out, "I love you, Jesus Christ!" during "King of the Carrot Flowers Pt. 2," it was obvious who they truly worshipped. -- AB

Just how massive is "Atlas," the hip-thrusting, headbanging, helium-voiced modern classic from 2007's Mirrored? So big and anthemic and dance-ready that a big room of usually reserved experimental music dorks went nuts for it. Seriously, "Atlas" isjust one of those songs that's a "hit" in every way except that it never got on the radio. But man, play it for anybody, even the nice old lady a little ways down the Asbury Park boardwalk selling boogie boards and hermit crabs and she'd probably get it. I'm sure it would've been appreciated by the kids blasting a Jersey Club refix of Drake's "I'm On One" from their car who slowed down to ask me what kind of music festival this was and then were bummed by my explanation. If only they could've walked into Battles and had their heads blown. Oh yeah: To make up for the absence of vocalist Tyondai Braxton who left the group last year, Battles re-recorded all his vocals and played them as just one more part of their controlled, chaotic sound. The now-trio's so virtuosic though, that this chintzy idea totally worked. -- BS

Although they started with "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" and ended with "Fight The Power," Public Enemy didn't perform all of 1990's Fear Of A Black Planet like they said they would. In between the start and finish of the album, they packed their set full of It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back hits, performed by a killer metal-leaning live band. And the show felt like a much more successful assertion of the group's relevance than if they had simply played one of their albums front-to-back. DJ Lord, Terminator X's replacement, meticulously scratched Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," creating something of a musical conversation between P.E. and other rebellious loud music of the early '90s. When they performed "By The Time I Get To Arizona," from Apocalypse 91...The Enemy Strikes (another great record that turned 20 this year), it solidified the implied connection to Nevermind. Then Chuck, who shouted "Occupy Wall Street" to cheers and fists in the air,reminded the audience that Arizona remains as "fucked-up" as it was in 1991. And but one more case for P.E.'s prescience is made. -- BS

For all the legendary reformations (the Pop Group, Ultramagnetic MCs, et al.), plus the near-sacred return of Jeff Mangum after so many years, Portishead delivered the best live sets of the festival on Saturday and Sunday nights (their first U.S. gigs since Coachella 2008). Trading sheer volume for nuanced dynamics, they picked their spots to attempt massive sonic statements in the booming, non-acoustics of the Convention Center. The downtempo splendor of "Glory Box" became even more narcotizing when Geoff Barrow's turntable scratches took over midway through. And as the martial staccato bludgeoning of "Machine Gun" started, you could feel the visceral impact of ach slug; on Sunday night, Chuck D even came onstage to spit the first verse of "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" atop the mechanistic rhythm.Also on Sunday, during "We Carry On," which nods to Silver Apples' 1969 song "Oscillations," the group brought out the Apples' Simeon to provide some extra noise.

It speaks to Portishead's strength that the most breathtaking moment of the festival was their spare, harrowing take on "Wandering Star," delivered by Beth Gibbons, Barrow, and Adrian Utley alone. Mute between songs all night, Gibbons showed her gratefulness to the enthusiastic festival-goers by suddenly leaping out into the crowd and surfing at the show's end. -- AB

READ MORE OF OUR ATP 2011 COVERAGE