Festival Review: All Points East - Day Four / Foals + Bombay Bicycle Club - August 2021
There’s no better way to spend a bank holiday than watching live music at a festival, All Points East brought their festival to a close in style with huge performances from the likes of Foals and Bombay Bicycle Club.
With Liz Lawrence opening the East Stage at at 2.15pm.
“I don’t think I’ve ever made it to a festival before six o’clock, so congratulations,” she said, introducing her last track, ‘None of My Friends’. It concludes a short set which sees people gravitating towards the main stage, and her strong vocals over electronic drumbeats. Introducing ‘The Good Part’ earlier on, Liz said: “I’ve been looking forward to this since 2019.” She made it worth the wait.
All Points East upgraded its second stage from 2019 to one equal in grandeur to the East Stage. On her own, Holly Humberstone proves she can turn her hands to anything, switching from guitars to synths effortlessly while modeling what seemed like several hundred pieces of jewellery. Having her debut release in February 2020, this was Holly’s chance to get festival crowds dancing, which she did with ‘Overkill’, and upcoming release ‘Scarlett’. Ever more experienced artists would do anything for two closing tracks as great as ‘Falling Asleep At The Wheel’ and ‘The Walls Are Way Too Thin’.
Maisie Peters, next on the West Stage at 4pm, conducted the crowd right away into a frenzy with ‘You Signed Up For This’, the title track of her debut album which was only 88 hours old at this point. At one point during her 40-minute set, Maisie said: “I’ve heard some people say it’s better than Kanye.” Stacked with proper pop hits like ‘Brooklyn’ and ‘Psycho’, brought alive by her impressive backing back, the show revealed this to be a fair assessment. It brought to mind the international pop stylings of Katy Perry or Sigrid – not bad just ten minutes from Maisie’s east London home. Closing with ‘John Hughes Movie’, a further nod to her love of film, she left the audience with choruses ringing in their ears for a long time afterwards.
On the BMW PlayNext Stage, Edinburgh’s four-piece Swim School bring something different again. Two weeks after their debut EP release ‘Making Sense Of It All’, they burst through their set in a haze of noise, shrieking, and good old-fashioned scuzzy rock. At their second ever English festival, frontwoman Alice Johnson had to induce a mosh pit through blackmail, claiming they would never return south of the border without one. The energetic crowd duly obliged; you can guarantee Swim School will be teaching rock and roll to more kids across the UK in 2022.
Opening their West Stage set with ‘the angel of 8th ave’, Gang of Youths feel like they’ve played it for years – not bad for a single released in June. Originally Australian, this is now a hometown show for the five-piece, helmed by Dave Le’aupepe being his usual showman self. Even a debut performance for ‘The Man Himself’, about Dave’s late father, was a showcase of GOY’s signature raucous sound. Using the opening of Pulp’s ‘Common People’ to lead into their own ‘Let Me Down Easy’ got the crowd talking long after their set, which concluded with ‘Magnolia’ and ‘What Can I Do If The Fire Goes Out?’, two big songs that will dominate festivals wherever the gang go.
Bombay Bicycle Club closed off the second stage in a prestigious sunset slot. Early on, ‘Shuffle’ proved the greatness of the four-piece as their number swelled to nine with their own band and a horn trio. The band flirted with festival mainstays like confetti, and calling fans onto their shoulders, but swerved other cliches – otherwise ‘Home By Now’ would have been their “lighters in the air” moment. Special guest Rae Morris contributed to BBC Live Lounge favourite ‘Lose You To Love Me’ - introduced as “one of our favourite Selena Gomez songs” – and ‘Luna’. ‘Always Like This’ included an on-stage performance from the London School of Samba, bringing added percussion to the finale of the 75-minute set. It also gave the audience added energy to power across Victoria Park to Foals.
In a tight 90 minutes, Foals wasted no time starting the party with the trifecta of ‘The Runner’, ‘Mountain at My Gates’, and ‘Olympic Airways’. The East Stage showcase exemplified what the Oxford band does best, whether through new track ‘Novo’ or unassailable festival anthem ‘My Number’. At times, the vocals felt a little low, but the crowd were happy to sing in full voice across a set that criss-crossed the Foals catalogue. It was not just the on-screen BSL interpreter – 2008’s ‘Red Socks Pugie’ and 2013’s ‘Inhaler’ were getting everyone throwing shapes across the park. Epic tracks like ‘What Went Down’ meant Foals lifted everyone on site up, and they showed why they will play big shows until further notice.
All Points East’s fourth day was stacked with a bill of artists to see time and again. All points to next year, when hopefully many of today’s men and women will feature again.
Words by Samuel Draper
Photography by Ant Adams