Asbury Park

Sunday kicks off with a 'secret' breakfast set at the bowling lanes from festival stalwarts Shellac. The band have more fun, are a little slacker and show a bit more of their humorous side than usual to the packed, largely hungover room, but remain a thrilling performance entity – especially in such close quarters. Let's face it, closing number ‘Prayer to God’ retains its power whether you are at a bowling alley, a club or perhaps even a church, and here they put on the most out-and-out enjoyable show of the weekend.

Angular noiseniks Deerhoof lay waste to the Con Hall stage with aplomb, mining this year's ...vs. Evil LP for all its addictive, semi-anthemic qualities, while still remaining purposely obtuse, otherworldly and also quite, quite pretty. The sound quality tries to mug them, but they manage to escape with dignity intact.

Seattle drone pioneers Earth then send The Paramount into a low-level trance with a selection of their more recent Americana-inspired material interspersed with a couple of old 'Sabbath-driven gems. It’s hefty, slow, awkward, discordant and darkly affecting stuff.

After much early-evening pinball and mini golf, Public Enemy are set to tackle a huge Convention Hall crowd. Bearing in mind Messrs. D, Flav et al. brought us 'Don’t Believe The Hype' all those years ago, a near-thirty-minute onstage 'warmup' featuring an actual hype man does not sit well. Far from rousing the crowd before the band's actual set begins, it sadly proves a very, very boring exercise in self-aggrandisement.

Still, after muddling through the first half a dozen numbers (sound issues unfortunately hamper things yet again), they eventually find their sonic spot and proceed to charge through the likes of 'Fight The Power' and 'Brothers Gonna Work It Out' as though they're trying to stamp out a fire. It reminds us all just why and how these guys were once the most important musical act in the world. Flavor Flav’s speechifying on world peace, racism and god takes the wind out of their sails somewhat, but then again it always has. When distilled to a pure, hard hip-hop experience – as they are tonight on seminal cut 'Timebomb', which sees Flav taking to the drums to underscore Chuck D’s imaginative rhymes – Public Enemy remain peerless. As for the needless frippery and over-the-top 'showmanship' that goes with them? Mere trivia.

With Mogwai sadly absent due to illness, we have only co-curators Portishead left to bring the curtain down on what's been an immensely enjoyable festival. We say "only Portishead"... In many ways this has been their weekend, and while they’ve certainly provided us with an excellent selection of music and film, the pressure is now very much on Beth Gibbons and co. to bring Sunday night to a close with a bang. That they are superb here this evening is beyond dispute – that they sound bigger and better than they’ve ever done is the real surprise.

They drop the hits, yes, and they are appreciated to a song, but it’s the lone guitar and vocal version of 'Wandering Star' that lets us all know we’re witnessing something truly special. Well, perhaps that and Chuck D's explosive cameo during 'Machine Gun', the rapper spitting rhymes from 'Black Steel in The Hour of Chaos' under Geoff Barrow's seismic industrial beats; even as it's happening it feels like one of those great, spontaneous "I was there!" festival moments, and it just about seals it for a set that barely lets up once from start to finish. Virtuoso, exceedingly heavy, cleverly angular and always, always beautiful, Portishead are now at the height of their powers. As tonight's performance underlines, they deserve to be celebrated for their enduring excellence.

Portishead photo courtesy of Abbey Braden/ATP

Michael James Hall also compiled his thoughts on the rest of this year's IBYM USA weekender. Go here to read what he made of Friday's festivities, and here to get his verdict on Saturday's goings-on at Asbury Park.

So, ATP America scoots away from The Catskills to the infinitely more Rock'n'Roll (TM) surroundings of Asbury Park, New Jersey – hallowed birthplace of both The E Street Band and The Asbury Jukes, as well as boasting the spiritual home (The Stone Pony) of countless other Springsteen associates.

First of all, let it be known that this is a great move: the twin venues of the beautiful art deco Paramount Theater and the cavernous-but-welcoming Convention Hall – augmented by the quintessentially American Asbury Lanes – are perfectly suited to staging the world’s favourite underground music fest; the desolate, out-of-season feel of The Boardwalk in late autumn provides the perfect backdrop to a weekend of strange and off-kilter performances.

Down at The Lanes, New Yorkers Cults arrive onstage with the Twin Peaks theme as entrance music (a good start to any weekend in our book), before galloping through a set of breathy, vaguely ominous-sounding indie pop to rapturous applause. Obviously some people are seeing special things here that others are blind to.

First up at The Paramount are The Album Leaf. Jimmy LaValle's mesmeric, almost entirely instrumental soundscapes are both compelling and comforting, unfurling a blanket of sonic warmth and pleasure that takes in influences from Vangelis and Moroder to Kraftwerk and Slint.

Over at The Convention Hall, meanwhile, Matt Sweeney's Chavez seem determined to kick out hard, despite (or perhaps due to) their protracted absence from live engagements. Although, like most Convention Hall acts over the course of the weekend, the band has to contend with muddy sound, the furious, jagged guitar assault of their Mission of Burma-styled post-hardcore clamour acts as a welcome refresher. An unfortunate mix-up over timings aside (they end up rolling out a very early encore indeed), they convince as a band back on track and firing on almost all cylinders.

A Hawk and A Hacksaw benefit tonight from featuring an ex-member of Neutral Milk Hotel (Jeremy Barnes) in their ranks; the hall quickly fills up for their post-teatime slot, with plenty of over-eager Jeff Mangum fans no doubt hoping for a precious collaboration or two. While this doesn’t transpire – and won’t until after the festival, at Mangum’s faultless standalone Paramount show – Barnes proves that leftfield world music really can possess bite, depth and of course the kind of lyricism that rock can often find so hard to attain. Their set is equal parts novel and absorbing as a result.

Soon afterwards, Shellac are busy stalking the stage like the battered old hounds of ATP that they are. The legendary trio's exclusive live performance relationship with organiser Barry Hogan ensures they end up playing almost every event he organises - often multiple times across a given festival (twice this weekend). The most satisfying aspect of this arrangement is that, in this scribe's experience at least, the Chicagoans are never less than excellent. More than that, Albini and co. are invariably brutal, fascinating, smart, corset-tight, loud as hell and – for all their raw viciousness – thoroughly loveable to boot. Their presence at ATP always raises the bar, and so it proves once again this evening: 'The End of Radio', in particular, sounds every bit as invigorating tonight as it did back in '07. New album immediately please...

Over to The Paramount we quickly scurry, and there waiting for us we have, for the first time in years, a real life Jeff Mangum solo show. Don't worry, we'll spare you the hype – everyone knows who Neutral Milk Hotel are/were at this stage, as well as just what their music means to so many people.

The man of the moment is, for want of a better word, glorious: his voice bell-clear, his playing strong, his (limited) audience interaction both good-humoured and charmingly self-deprecating. Setlist-wise, he plays his best songs, and he plays them darn near perfectly: ‘Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone’, an audience-requested ‘Naomi’, ‘The King of Carrot Flowers’ and (but of course) a stormingly great ‘Holland, 1945’. He plays everything we all want to hear, basically, and then leaves. The world does not stop spinning on its axis, and the gig doesn’t turn out to be the answer to the world’s spiritual problems; but it is a rousing and brilliant hour and a bit nonetheless.

Shellac photo courtesy of Abbey Braden/ATP

Michael James Hall also compiled his thoughts on the rest of this year's IBYM USA weekender. Go here to read what he made of Saturday's festivities, and here to get his verdict on Sunday's goings-on at Asbury Park.