Festival Review: Outbreak x All Points East - London 23/08/2026
Victoria Park’s annual eclectic array of shows teams up with heavy music juggernaut Outbreak Festival to deliver an all-star cast of truly unforgettable shows.
All Points East is a long-standing pillar of the London music scene, having hosted a plethora of the world’s best and brightest from every genre over the years, but this year's collaborative team-up with Outbreak Festival saw various kings and queens of heavy music descend upon Victoria Park for a riot-filled day of action-packed sets, vicious musicianship and unyielding raw talent. The line-up this year was the definition of stacked, hosting titans like Deftness, Idles, AFI, Amyl and the Sniffers and Basement across their main stages while remaining to champion smaller artists from the alternative scene with bands like Tooth, Wisp, Show Me the Body and Ecca Vandal alongside a variety of high-energy hip-hop artists such as JPEGMAFIA, EssDee Kid and Kenny Mason. These scenes have often run alongside each other on the precipice of counterculture, and to see them welded together into such an ironclad event and have these communities celebrated made for a seminal musical experience. Every band was truly on top form across all stages, with the north arena stage hosting a blend of rap artists and up-and-coming heavy hitters, while the Rising, X and E3 stages pulled together a host of excellent new artists. This, coupled with the powerhouse talents across each stage, proved to be truly unforgettable.
As the waves of Deftones shirts and eyeliner-clad fans began to swarm the arena, the smaller stages were off to the races with Show Me the Body beating the north arena crowd into submission with their fast paced and glaring riffs and gathering a host of new fans while they were at it, as this set raged on it soon became time for the very first big name on the bill to open up the east stage, Basement. Not far removed from their iconic and earth-shattering headline set of Outbreak Manchester, Basement took the stage to potentially one of the biggest and most unruly crowds I have ever witnessed for an opener. This set proved that it will be no time at all before they have their name on the marquee for a gigantic event like this, as every step Basement have taken thus far behind their 2026 release ’WIRED’ has been calculated and hyper successful. The unyielding forward momentum that they possess is something that is sung to the heavens time and time again, as Andrew said at their Manchester show, ’Basement is not a nostalgia band; this is a living, breathing creative process’, and their live shows take that to the next level. They opened up by tearing straight through a host of tracks from ‘WIRED’, with ’Time Waster’ proving to be the perfect song to put some bounce in the crowd. There was a sense of immediacy to the energy they brought as their older bangers like ‘Covet’ and ‘Hole’ rang out over mosh pits and crowd surfers from beginning to end before closing out on the brilliant ‘Promise Everything’.
After Basement, it was clear that the crowd was raring to go, and as Basement ended, the crowd were fortunate enough to be able to make a mad dash through the dust and dry heat over to the west stage for Philadelphia powerhouse, Mannequin Pussy. Their set was laden with charm, aggression and powerful political messaging that drove a deep sense of purpose into the crowd as they raged through hardcore-style heavy hitters like ‘Pigs Is Pigs’ and ‘OK? OK! OK? OK!’ In a cacophony of flailing limbs and coarse screams, before bringing it back down for their elegant and sharp closing track ‘Loud Bark’. The sheer magnetism and stage presence of Mannequin pussy is second to none and created this trance-like energy around the adoring fans that crowded the stage.
This set was closely followed by the most intricate and stylishly aggressive hip-hop artist on the bill, JPEGMAFIA. Known for blending elements of modern hip-hop and other alternative genres, he, along with his 4-piece ensemble, took to the stage with the tenacious frontman making the brave choice of wearing an entire blacked-out suit and gloves; this was not a case of style over substance, however, as JPEGMAFIA came to tear the roof down. His band backed his rapid and punchy flows through every track. The highlights of which were a beautifully performed cover of Carly-Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’ and the scathing and punk-centred ‘I Scream in the Mirror Before I Interact with Anyone’. This hard-hitting set was the perfect example of the kind of power on display when artists blend countercultures into a fresh and eccentric sound and opened up new doors for many people who may have just been fans of one of those respective genres.
The next two trips through the dust bowl proved very worthwhile as the east and west stages respectively hosted AFI and Interpol, two drastically different bands that were both absolutely astounding for different reasons. While both bands sounded fantastic, the energy and presence were two different beasts within themselves. AFI brought a daring and enthusiastic hard classic rock feel to the stage, and to this day I will always wonder how on earth this band aren’t playing stadiums. Their presence, especially the sheer tenacity and unencumbered energy of the lead singer Davey Havok, is lightning in a bottle, and to witness that on a festival stage felt like. Headline set, everything from their love of harmonics to their expert craftsmanship made for a truly wild ride. Both of these bands’ stage presence have aged like fine wine, as the AFI sound feels even better live now than it does on record at their peak. Their loud and in-your-face style made for one of the most energetic sets of the weekend as various members of the bands flung themselves off of the risers and now likely possess enough air miles to get to the middle of France for free. Interpol were the opposite end of the scale, while remaining just as brilliant. Their brooding and scalded sound was only amplified by the band’s sheer style and swagger. Interpol are exactly what you would imagine a rock band to look like and took to the stage as the epitome of cool, burning through songs like ‘Obstacle 1’ and ‘PDA’ with a burning passion and without a note out of place. Everything about both of these bands propelled energy into both of their enormous crowds and acted as the perfect deviation from the rest of the line-up, keeping things fresh and ready for the final three acts on these main stages.
Amyl and the Sniffers were the next act on the east stage and cemented their place as future hall of famers. Their unique blend of Aussie punk has been one of the greatest things to witness in the modern music scene, and having seen them before, anticipation was high for this monstrous set, and needless to say, all expectations were blown out of the water. Their carefree tracks like ‘Tiny Bikini’ and ‘Me and the Girls’ from their 2024 album had a buoyant and vibrant energy in their lyricism that created a perfect classic with the piercing and vicious instrumentals. The raw talent of the instrumental section boosts the performance to new heights every time, and despite having a replacement bassist, everyone stayed in the pocket and shredded away for the whole set. Declan, the guitarist for the Aussie four piece, may very well be one of the best around at the moment and it's mesmerising to see someone enjoy themselves that much while playing such complex and intricately woven solos, this is reinforced tenfold by their rhythm section who again despite the stand in made Amy Taylors job of dancing like a woman possessed while singing with vitriol and unbridled punk energy even easier.
Following immediately after Amyl’s whirlwind set, it was time for our west stage headliner, Bristol’s very own Idles. This band holds a special place for me, being from Bristol, and seeing them succeed and become so prominent at the level they operate within is astounding. Idles bring the heat every time they grace the stage, and All Points East was no different. Their set is down to an eloquently performed routine now: the scorned rasping vocals and a jungle of discordant tones takes the very ethos of punk music and amplifies it with frenzied inspiration and creative prowess, and this is never more evident than when you’re watching it happen meters away from you. Starting heavy on Colossus, they battled through the dust-ridden crowd and kept their high energy maniacal tone up the entire set, pouring emotion and spite into personal songs like ‘Mother’ and ‘The Wheel’ while remaining dancey and radiant the entire time despite the heavy context behind these tracks. Their action-packed hour saw pits on top of pits for barbarous tracks like ‘Mr. Motivator’ and ‘Never Fight a Man with a Perm’. Their aggressive form of community and loving care for themselves and their fans is always clear and this care coupled with the honest and true fighting for a better tomorrow for people worldwide makes idles fans everywhere proud to call their catalogue and their performances a home away from home, this strong sense of unity often comes out in the form of ‘Danny Nedelko’ and in the current climate this song both live and on record acts as a beacon of hope for people to be able to stand together and that they did, arm in arm or arm in face if you were caught in the middle of the pit every word was growled back at the stage from an energised and communal crowd. Idles acted as the perfect sub-headliner as they injected dopamine into the festival audience for one last time before the big finale, the mighty Deftones.
A long-standing titan of this millennium’s metal scene, Deftones had managed to capture the spirit of what made their previous records so powerful and inject it into an all-new time frame with their 2025 album ‘Private Music’. After touring around the UK in February of this year and leaving a real mark on the crowds that were present to bear witness, this return wasn’t wanted; it was necessary. The crowd packed themselves in tightly to the east stage as far back as the eye could see and waited in anxious anticipation to be shrouded in the foreboding and chilling sound of their long running catalogue and as soon as the first high pitch harmonic chord of ’Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)’ was struck it rang out to a rampant applause and collection of cheers before jumping straight into the chaos. Opening on such a classic was the perfect plan to sow the seeds of disarray, a theme that carried out through the entirety of the set. Aside from the astounding performance itself the on-screen visuals and the stage lighting were some of the most ingenious I have seen for a festival stage, the already dense and sonically rich atmosphere of the deftness performance is greatly amplified by the uncanny and strange visuals that back their set through its duration and made the set feel much more special as every song felt as if it was the centre of the universe and everything else was existing around it. The immersion of their live performance was best demonstrated in the songs from their albums ‘Diamond Eyes’ and the aforementioned ‘Private Music’. While the tone of diamond eyes is a more eerie and calculated sound, they kept its original feel and added heavier tones and more brutal compositions, allowing it to flow through the energy of the crowd seamlessly while songs like ‘Private Music’s’ ‘Locked Club’ and ‘My Mind Is a Mountain’ carried the raw power throughout the first half of the set without missing a single beat.
The second half of their set contained a similar host of classics and deep cuts to channel the crowd’s unwavering energy as the guttural screams of tracks like ‘Infinite Source’ gave way to emotive and cavernous singalongs like ’Sextapes’. The mix of sound and style suited the band so well as this unapologetic change of pace kept anticipation high and allowed for all forms of self-expression. Be it dancing like a lunatic and screaming the air from your lungs or swaying amidst a singalong, the vibe was perfectly encapsulated by every song and allowed the flow of the set to work its magic while Deftones kept their truly magnetic performance rolling. As we came to a close, they played three of their biggest and best songs, after seeming as if they had already laid it all out on the stage it was a pleasant surprise to hear the agony in people's voices as they attempted to harmonise with the band through ‘Change (In the House of Flies) before giving us two of the best live songs I have ever seen. The first of these two was obvious, that being ‘My Own Summer (Shove It)’, arguably the most influential and grandiose song in their catalogue, a song that inspired waves and generations of bands after to make some of the music that the Outbreak crowd hold so dear. This song gave Deftones the power of the world in their hands as they commanded the crowd through its rhapsodies of anarchy; everyone throughout the entire crowd showed up to let loose for that song with pits forming front to back and gangs of audience members slamming into each other in pure elation. This energy was melded yet again into my personal favourite of the evening,’7 Words’. A no-holds-barred anthem from their first album that saw the range of Chino’s vocals pushed to their limits as he squealed and writhed in anger during the songs malicious chorus and final breakdown. Every part of this performance was on point; the rapid crunching riffs played over the pounding of Abe’s drum kit as the band gave it their absolute all made for the perfect close to a set that I and many others will remember forever.
All Points East did a phenomenal job at displaying all levels of the alternative scene and has really given a platform to bands that rightfully deserve it. It was an honour to be able to witness these sets and experience the depth of talent that these genres possess, and it has me hopeful for the future of these festivals. If organisations can keep creating spaces for artists to flourish, grow and show off the art, the passion and the aggression that they need to show the world, then it will inspire more artists for years to come to keep creating music that breathes life into these alternative scenes. Outbreak and All Points East have pulled off a true masterclass of entertainment, and after the layer of dust has been washed off and your vocal cords have recovered, make sure you grab tickets to local shows and band tours to ensure that you can give life to the scene from the other side of the stage the way that these bands have this past weekend.
Words by Josh Pook
Photography Stefania Semini
