Every year Victoria Park in Hackney has been home to Field Day and Lovebox, weekend festivals with a varied musical selection. In 2018, things changed however, when the organisers of Coachella and some other global festivals bidded for the site and won. The festival was called All Points East and a rather excellent line up was announced for the weekend festival and we agreed to give two of the days a go. This is day 1, Friday.
I arrived very early and got there before it opened, this was despite a fear of not getting there due to poor rail travel, which is hitting the London area currently. Security was fine, but they were doing handing out bags for our loose items as they do at airports. Supposedly to expedite the entry process, I was too early to see if it works; being one of the first in I had no queueing.
I was the first one into the Despacio room, and it was great to be reunited with the 7 audio overlords that are used by James Murphy and the Dewaele brothers to play excellent disco and slowed down dance remixes on one of the best sound systems in the world. It was clearly too early to take root in here, I'd be back later.
The first live act was Confidence Man who kicked off the music in the West Stage. Their set was better than when I saw them last year. Having their first album now out meant it was easier for them to fill their time slot, something the struggled to do on their last tour. They had a very good response but would have benefited from being on later. We were just a little too sober for their shenanigans.
Hookworms were the first act we saw on the North Stage. Recommended by a friend, they were alright although the lead keyboard player looked like he'd cycled here with no time to change.
In the Jagermeister stage, a small intimate venue sponsored by the drink we saw Vessels. They were OK although the lead singer looked a bit like Death from Bill and Ted..."Best 3 out of 5".
Also on the North Stage we caught Phoenix's set. They were pretty good, we mixed this set with the Young Fathers (good) who were on the East Stage (not photographed). The lineup was so strong we managed to miss Hot Chip Megamix and Chromeo. To be honest most of the afternoon was spent in the Despacio room where it was extremely dark and quite hot but an incredible clubbing experience.
The headline on the Friday was the always excellent LCD Soundsystem. Super polished and always good but they're missing the "I was there" feeling that you should get from a band like this. Their show is the same show we saw at Ally Pally last year with a few song changes. It was incredible but is in danger of getting tired.
No comments:
Post a Comment