All Points East – 24th August 2025, Victoria Park, London – All Points East 2025 then, it is a festival well documented on these pages in recent years, it does happen right on our doorstep, right there in our local park, hell, we can hear it without ever having to leave our East London bunker. Yes it is one of those big corporate affairs (by no means as corporate as some) and no, not really our natural music hunting ground, it usually does deliver a treat to two though and for everything that is wrong about these big corporate affairs, it is a well run festival, one of the more friendly and considerate of the big Summer festivals and like we said last week with our ArcTanGent coverage, you don’t feel as exploited and milked as you do at say those British Summertime Hyde Park affairs where it does feel like they’ve just packed you in with the intention of milking as much money out of you as they possible can before they throw you out again. 

It would be more than fair to say we’ve witnessed some excellent performances from bands and such over in Victoria Park at All Points East in recent years, a quick back on an envelope list from the last four or five years pulls together that absolutely brilliant almost religious Nick Cave set, the power of that Stormzy performance in that biblical rain, the positive storm that was Idles, the much missed Black Midi at their best, the bite of that Nas set, that really impressive afternoon set from Decemberists last year, The Smile in the sunshine sounding almost happy the year before as well as fine moments from Sleater-Kinney, Gossip, Say She She, Pixies, Gustaf, Teenage Fanclub, Romy, Durand Jones, Willow Kayne (where’s she got to?), André 3000, Cymande, Loyle Carner, Seaford Mods, the rather excellent Lazy Eyes and quite a few more. This year? Well this year, it has to be said, the daily bills this year over the now traditional two weekends of All Points East and the newly born little sister Lido festival earlier in the year in the same space from the same people didn’t look so enticing. Bands and performers demanding we make the five minute walk to the park rather than get out of earshot were a little thin of the ground this year. Victoria Park really wasn’t calling us in 2025 like it has in previous years – really can’t say the prospect of the return of the Maccabees excited us and who really cares if Barry, whoever the hell Barry is? Who cares if Barry can’t swim?  Cleo Sol, Chase & Status, Raye and their bills just didn’t call us to the park this year (hey, they certainly called others, I do believe every day was pretty much a sell out, this is no dig at the organisers, although, the Macabees?! Not exactly cutting edge is it? Indie-smindie cricket commentator lightweight politeness!). We do kind of like the festival though, it is almost a very nearly almost end of Summer tradition now and the closing Maccabees day of this year’s two weekend festival looked to be the best of a not very demanding bunch of bills and well It is all right there on our doorstep and we were invited and well… 

And well, it is all right on our doorstep and well Warmduscher were back after brilliantly running Black Midi really close a couple of years back and Black Country, New Road still have us curious and those first two albums really were good, the slightly (radically?) new direction had kind of disappointed and it seemed like they were (understandably) only playing material from the third studio album (and that live album of previously unreleased material) but we were still hopefully curious, we hadn’t completely given up on Black Country completely. I can’t say we were as excited about the day in the park as the clucking women heading in the direction of the festival and falling over themselves and a half finished bottle of wine were about some of the final day’s line up; “Can we just go and see The Cribs, get pissed and piss off again?” screeched one to the other.  The Cribs were certainly not calling us in early, Divorce might charm at times but they weren’t calling us either, Dry Cleaning have turned out to be mostly annoyingly annoying, Everything Everything, after their very early promise have become one big watered down disappointment, Youth Lagoon‘s music hasn’t really grabbed us yet and pre-festival research did nothing in terms of us wanting to check out anyone or anything on the smaller stages and while Hamish Hawk‘s The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973 might have exited us for a while back there, he’s really offered very little since then. Sorry sounded kind of politely interesting ahead of the event, they have a feisty song or two, Jetplane is a standout but it really was only Man/Woman/Chainsaw who were calling us in early and well, that slightly annoying crowd making their way to the park and all the dust already blowing around and as good as Man/Woman/Chainsaw’s interchanging dynamic can be, do we really want to be stuck behind that big green festival fence all day? Shall we go do other things that need to be done and come back later rather then spend the whole day trapped in there?  

When we do return those Futureheads are well into their set on the Radio X stage, the stage that the one time XFM people have wrestled off Bloody Six Music this year – must have been one hell of an arm wrestle, the blokey blokes from Radio X versus that self-congratulating nauseating squad from Bloody Six Music. Radio X, as Xfm rebranded itself in a self declared relaunch as a ‘male-focused’ station that made a big play about a bloke-friendly line-up led by Chris Moyles and a load of blokey banter a few years back. It does kind of feels like blokey bloke (and ladette) time in here in this very blokey audience of people who probably wanted to go see Oasis this year but couldn’t get tickets so they went drinking coffee at Broadway Market instead and as good as a cover as it is, The Futureheads have been kind of trading on that version of Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love for twenty years or so now. The fact that Hounds is still such a big big highlight for most of the crowd gathered in front of the smaller stage they’re playing says lots, I mean it does go down a playful storm but it really must annoy the band that they have nothing of their own to rival it (their second best recording career moment might well have been a Buzzcocks cover) and it must be a problem without any clues that we really can’t be bothered to work out.  I once bought a Futureheads album for a whole 20p at the local Salvation Army shop, I donated it back a couple of weeks later. Classic indie landfill but hey, they’re going down well enough on the Radio X Stage, we’ll leave them to it, they sound like they’re all having a good time chanting that bit from Hounds Of Love at each other… 

Wow, there’s a lot of dust being kicked up here, the park really is suffering after a week’s worth of herds have rush across the rain-free plains from one stage to another. Actually the park does seem to recover rather quickly each year, this is the worst we’ve seen it though, this is seriously seriously dusty, when did it last rain? This is spaghetti western dusty (later on welfare teams are going to be handing out masks as people do start to really suffer). We’re heading for our old friend the big blue tent for a rather out-of-place Black Country, New Road. All Points East bills are usual positively diverse, today’s seems a little more one dimensional that usual and Black Country seem genuinely surprised to see a more than healthy crowd waiting for them in the big blue tent.  Now I haven’t caught Black Country live for quite some time, not since lead vocalist and guitarist Isaac Wood announced his sudden departure from the band four days before the release of the band’s second album Ants From Up There back in 2022 (citing struggles with his mental health, apparently the rest of the band were prewarned and prepared, it wasn’t out of the blue). Out of respect for Wood, the band has chosen not to perform material from their first two albums live and since then, vocal duties have been shared between Tyler Hyde, Lewis Evans, Georgia Ellery and May Kershaw. I will admit the most recent album didn’t really grab these ears, that early experimental edge was missing, that tense need, those musical demands that made the debut so so powerfully challenging. The Cambridge band, who consist of graduates of various art and music schools, kind of felt a little politely watered down without Wood, a little in danger of being a little dare we say middle class twee about it all? There’s something that is just a little too ‘nice’ about the current Black Country, New Road but were we a bit too hasty in completely dismissing this year’s new album? I mean 2021’s For the First Time debut did have us asking if Black Country, New Road had just hit us with what could be the best album of year even though it was only February at the time? in the end Gazelle Twin and Peter Hammill just about pipped them but that was one hell of a debut! Actually Two Horses (from the new album) does have some very 70s Genesis bits, that’s always cool in our book. Of that first album we wrote of “hints of all kinds of things here, Pulp, Ahleuchatistas, The Enablers, Oxbow, idles, the much missed drama of Lapsus Linguae and yes okay then, hints of Scott Walker in there with that wiry tension the almost prog-edged soundscapes, jazz-flavoured tastes of post-punk, everything far from obvious though, everything alive, everything alive with an energy of their own, with a ferocity, with colours that others maybe don’t attempt to mix together, accessible, restoring, a feel, Black Country, New Roads have a feel, they have the right feel, nothing wrong with being a “now” band, they are more that just that though, For The First Time is a fine fine debut album, For The First Time is just what we want really, just what we need right now” – and here we are in a giant tent in the middle of an East London park and a festival bill that they’re probably a little out of place on and they may not have Isaac Wood now and they might be a slightly (very?) different six headed beast now, but they are still Black Country, New Roads and this is a rather good early evening hour long set they’re easing us through in a very bright uplifting rather positively rewarding way…

The three women at the front are switching vocal duties and instruments with ease, they seem to deliver things with a little more power and bite live than they do on the recent album, are they and we growing into this new material? Okay some of those lyrics might be a little twee, they do seem to be honest though, they do seem to be from the heart and not so understood and when all is said and done thing do seem to be rather enjoyable in a naturally clever kind of way. There’s a chemistry between the six of them that makes their dynamic work, that makes them kind of unique. The progressiveness of it all is almost conservative, almost easy listening, crafted to be intriguing, songs that are spiced up with musical tricks, whimsical hooks that make you smile – it works, the whole aim is meandering paths to emotional outbursts and big endings, a whole lot of holding back until they musically let it all go. Songs like Besties are lyrically obvious, carefree, and what about you? In fact don’t answer that. Okay, the lyrics are maybe a little annoying at times and yes, middle class pear pie nice where once there were all those burdens of reference and not quite knowing where they were going (or where Issac Woods was taking them) back there, all that previous self-doubt and the notion that it really was black country out there. 

This is a completely different band and experience now, new material like For The Cold Country is sounding musically rather glorious in here in front of this rather enthusiastic big blue tent crowd. Nancy Tries To Take The Night twists beautifully, songs that wait by the door to ask you how your day has been until you maybe dig a little deeper and… The almost ten minute dramatic building up to the climax of Turbine/Pigs is an attention demanding baroque pop highlight, Happy Birthday is a delightful climax but not before Tyler Hyde speaks about what is going on in Gaza, the entire Black Country, New Roads set has been played with a large Palestinian flag very openly hanging from the keyboard at the front of the stage. Hey, we came along feeling curious, expecting not to be engaged, expect to maybe find ourselves politely leaving them to it. Hey, maybe we need to have another look at Black Country, New Roads, they’re a very different band now, this first albums were brilliant, but to hang those two albums around their necks is unfair, that period needs to be both celebrated and respectfully parked over there, time to take a closer look at this Black Country, New Road, this was a refreshingly honest performance, these new songs clearly need to be allowed to breath, the positives embraced, some of those lyrics are a little, well they’re not from a world I know – the occasional line of lyrics apart, Black Country, New Roads were rather fine at All Points East, time to take a closer look at this new version of the band, they were good.   

There’s just enough time to avoid the line for the bar and a dust-cutting beer and instead to rush over and catch the last two songs of a clearly very well received Warmduscher set. Fair to say they have those who have crammed in in front of the Radio X stage already jumping when here he comes, whoever he is, when here he comes with that four wheel drive of the Midnight Dipper and that low slung disco-fried funk that demands you just leave everything else outside and just go with it. Warmduscher are just a band you have to be there for, a gloriously positive throwaway band to just be in the pop art moment with; “a subway sandwich ride to heaven” is how they put it, here’s another #43SecondFilm… 

Talking of #43SecondFilm footage, Bombay Bicycle Club looked and sounded atmospherically impressive as the movement starts towards the other end of the festival site and the need to grab a good spot for the Maccabees, All Points East does always look good as the late Summer sun goes down behind the West Stage, Bombay Bicycle Club have never really done much for anyone around here but hey, they were decent enough for a Warholian fifteen minutes or so before we go do a bit of people watching ahead of the headliner’s set.

That dust is getting seriously challenging now and seven quid and change for a small can of beer really is taking the piss!

As for the Maccabees. well you can’t deny the joy of their crowd, people are dancing, lost in their personal joy, lost in their moment, they open with one of their better songs in Latchmere, we stick around for five or so songs that all kind of follow the same indie guitar band formula and seem happy to just swim in that same lane (and avoid the wave machine), four or five songs that feel the same as the first one did before leaving them (and the awful drum sound) and this year’s All Points East to it.

The Maccabees are harmless enough, to kick them would be to kick a puppy, people are enjoying them, there’s a girl there dancing in circles, arms in the air, completely lost in it, who am I to deny that moment? She’ll probably never forget it. We walk away with the band and the cheers behind us, it takes us three or four more songs to get the to the exit (this is a big festival), there’s nothing that stops us in our path as walk away. There’s nothing to complain about, All Points East is always a positive experience, in past years there’s been some brilliant bills, this year nothing really engaged with is, nothing much made us want to come along, we were kind of clutching at straws today, Black Country, New Road were the band of the day by miles and it is always good to encounter Warmdusher, All Points East didn’t really do it for us this year though, maybe next year? (sw) 

As always do please click on an image to see the whole image or to run the slide show