Deftones, Idles, Mannequin Pussy, Concrete Vehicles and more, Breakout at All Points East, Victoria Park, London, 23rd August 2026 – Off to the dust bowl of All Points East then, that dust can’t be avoided, it still can’t be on the morning after the day (and the three day first weekend of) before, the damn dusty nose-clogging throat-rasping stuff is everywhere! It hasn’t really rained in any kind of meaningful way in this part of East London for the last two months, the park has been a tinderbox of crunched up bone dry dropped-way-too-early dead leaves and hardly any grass on the ground all Summer and now on a third day of tend of thousands of people tramping from one stage to another the park is not looking good. It does get rather dusty most Summers, it is seriously seriously dusty this year and we’re not far off some kind of almost-hell, we’re not quite talking Mad Max Treworgey Tree Fayre proportions and unlike that ‘legendary’ violent-at-times festival, things are very friendly here but we are finding ourselves bringing up that time as a comparison (thankfully no dead sheep in the water tank here). That dust has to be mentioned right off; there was a lot of political comment coming from the various stages and from a number of bands on Sunday, strong statements about unity, about Palestine, about ICE (which is a little strange seeing considering we’re not in the USA? Maybe Farage and his repulsive gang might have made a better target? A lot of strong political statement especially from the rather excellent Mannequin Pussy and of course from those beautiful beasts that are Idles, the one thing we didn’t hear from anyone we were watching, besides a slight mention in terms of performing in the dust from Idles frontman Joe Talbot, was a mention of climate change. Surely, whatever else is going on in the world that really is the biggest issue of them all? As enjoyable as they often are, you do wonder how much longer these big festivals like this can happen in places like this? On the Monday after the Sunday before, our local park looks like a slightly desperate desert, will it recover from this one? Is this not symbolic of something far bigger than a bit of dust in an East London park? Yes, f**k ICE and free free Palestine but what good are any of those chants if no one can grown anything on a dead planet?
Yes it is our local park, we have been based just a couple of minutes from the annual two weekend festival for a good number of years now and even if big corporate music festival money machines like this aren’t our natural ground, we do kind of look forward to making the very short walk to All Points East at least a couple of times each year (hell, we could listen to the whole thing without getting out of bed if we wanted to!). There’s been some glorious days and some delicious performances in Victoria Park over the last half a dozen or so years; Nick Cave, Stormzy in that biblical rain, Pixies, Sleater Kinney, that brilliant Decemberists set, Loyle Carner, Smile, Knucks, that time Black Midi remained undefeated although Warmduscher almost took their crown, Party Dozen, Willow Kayne, the euphoria of Romy, that time Durand Jones brought the soul, Teenage Fanclub in the afternoon sunshine, Sleaford Mods on top top form that time in the heat of big blue tent, the last time Idles played the park back in 2022. All Points East is one of the better big corporate type festivals, it seems a little more friendly that most of them. True, the bills haven’t been quite so good in the last couple of years (or maybe just not to our tastes?), we only went once last year (mostly for Black County, New Roads) and once again this year Deftones day and Outbreak is the only day of the six this year that’s really calling us in any kind of meaningful way….
Off we go to the park then, we do like the walk there and the crowd slowly coming together as everyone walks through to the main gate (when I was a kid I’d travel hundreds of miles for things like this, now we can get there in half the time it takes to listen to a decent prog rock song). This year’s festival app is in the back pocket (once again a list on the back of a used envelope, what else could you possible need? You know where to go with your damn QR codes and the need for a damn phone wherever you go, write it on a piece of paper and put that phone away). The first band we really want to see are Mannequin Pussy, well we wanted to checkout the dark moods of Deafheaven but hey, first bands we really want to see and first clash of the day, they’re both on at the same time! We never did get to see any of Deafheaven or indeed check out Reclus.E who are also clashing over on the small Rising Stage for once Mannequin Pussy were on the stage there was never a chance of us leaving to go checkout anyone else out! The band from Philadelphia had our attention from the off with their compelling on-stage energy, their forthright attitude and more importantly, their rather fine songs. Mannequin Pussy are a positive breath of cathartic fresh air in the clouds of dust that are already rising; “There’s just so much constantly going on that feels intentionally evil that trying to make something beautiful feels like a radical act ” is how they have put it, that really does sum them up perfectly in one line, or at least sum up this live performance. The five of them, the current line up of Colins Regisford, Kaleen Reading, Maxine Steen and Marisa Dabice with Carolyn Haynes alongside them as part of the live band (as she has been since 2021) have been developing this thing of theirs rather nicely since the start of the decade – true, Marisa (or Missy) has been leading a band called Mannequin Pussy for fifteen years or more, Kaleen Reading has been behind her kit for a dozen or so of those years, does really feel like their time is now though and they really grabbed hold of things on the second (big) stage in Park in the middle of the afternoon. Marisa “Missy” Dabice is up there owning the big stage, the rest of the band, bass player Colins Regisford and the other three girls look and sound powerfully strong, almost defiantly so with their mix of sometimes 90s indie alt.rock and their riot-grrrl flavoured punk that gets close to touching on something more hardcore when it needs to. Deep Bite is a standout along with the beauty of a mass primal scream and shout and call for unity and a working class stance that comes before it, Missy can’t resist a couple of minutes of speaking out against empire, colonialism, Trump. bigotry, ICE and a need for us to be united and not allow ourselves to be divided, if she wants to be or not Missy is coming over as a strong powerful role model up there in that really cool orangey red dress in front of an audience of very receptive people of all shapes and shades. No, there was no way we were going to go checkout any other band on any other stage while Mannequin Pussy were still up there being so impressively good at their very good thing…
Okay, so I did want to check out New York’s Show Me the Body earlier in the day but hey, real life and things to attend to before a lazy day off in the park and so we missed them and we missed Reclus.E when we really wanted to check them out. We drift towards the big stage and Jpegmafia, the experimental rapper from Brooklyn is probably more suited to the studio or a ghetto blaster or at least a dark packed club rather than a giantarse wideopen enormo stage in the middle of the stark bright light of a Summer afternoon in East London. He does make great records, some of it sounds like some of the things that sounded so groundbreakly exciting in the early 80s when people like Malcolm Mclaren were bringing it to us over here for the first time – updated obviously, but today isn’t really the day for Jpegmafia and Salem are on in the big blue tent with that sometimes-blissful, sometimes almost nightmarish slow moving atmospheric drag-rap thing that’s partly from Michigan and partly from Chicago and mostly sounds like sinister film soundtracks where you don’t quite want to know what’s going on. Salem sound seriously atmospheric in the warmth of the big (big) tent but we do want to see a bit of Wisp as well and she’s over (from San Francisco) on the other big stage with her band and her wispy floaty breathy throwback to 80s shoegaze Cocteau Twins flavours that are more than okay for two or three songs before you start to think it might need a change of gear and we might need to find a pint…
How much for (small) can of IPA? Are you taking the piss as well as trying to sell it to us? You could easily get a little a a bit cynical smile about these £95 plus booking fee for the basic ticket festivals (and and the upgrades they’re constantly trying to flog you one your in should you wish to get within a mile of the main band at the end of it all) and how they tell you you can bring an empty water bottle in but nothing to actually drink and then find the “plenty of free water available on site” demands you stand in a long line for one of the not very many water points and you wonder if it is all designed to drive us to the bar and seven and a half quid for a half arsed tiny can of beer? You might ask if that is why they put the indie-landfill that Interpol on the main stage in the middle of the day in the middle of the day as well? Surely Interpol and their plod aren’t just there just to drive people to the bar to spend more money are they? And yes, you’re right, we got in on the press list, we’re on a blag, of course we haven’t coughed up ninety-five notes each! Doesn’t mean we can’t call it as we see it though, doesn’t mean I can’t wear my Cynical Smile t-shirt. We do eventually find some draught beer, eight notes and spare but that dust is hell and the lines for water are long (we did resist the customised Deftones Magnum ice creams as we think of Danny and those hippy wigs they’re selling in Woolworths).
AFI are on the second big stage at at 5.30pm, can’t say we were that bothered about seeing them either which is probably a good thing because, more tha nanyone else, we really really (really) wanted to see Concrete Vehicles on the small Rising Stage at the same time as AFI are on. Now the records we’ve heard by the now five piece band from Vancouver promised lots, as did the videos they’ve been making, the films we’ve seen made Concrete Vehicles look like they were going to be as good live as they sound in the studio (check out that excellent Station On The Hill footage we posted on these pages a few weeks back). We spend the ten minutes before they come on telling anyone who wants to listen that they maybe need to stick around and check them out, a quick vox-pop before they go on tell us no one in front of the stage knows anything about them. Some say they’re curious, some say they’ll give them five minutes based on what we’re saying, a couple of songs in and Concrete Vehicles have doubled the audience as those lucky enough to be passing within earshot get wind of what’s going down, things quickly go from a politely curious little crowd of onlookers to a full-on hardcore pit of bodies, people are running to get in on the action. There’s one guy in a Computer shirt, everyone else seems to know nothing about them, “who are you?” is shouted out numerous times at the end of each explosive song (Computer are what they were called before someone took legal action and thankfully forced them to get a far better name for their excellent band). There a lot going on musically here, if they are a hardcore punk band then they’re a brilliantly experimental one, a deliciously colourful one; think Drive Like Jehu for Dog Faced Hermans fans, yes really, that good! Come on, any band who name drop Dog Faced Hermans have to be worth a moment of your time as they come at you with saxophone, synths and all kinds of colourful percussion alongside the edge of the four and six string awkwardness. This is properly Other Rock, they’re bringing in a lot things, clever details, not so obvious moves, they’ve got a bag load of onstage energy (they all used to dress the same), they almost have a touch of Black Midi about them, the boys and girls in the growing pit are loving it, the crowd is extending back as they relentlessly come at us for their allotted half hour shot at things. The keyboard player really wants to not be stuck behind his keyboard stand, the singer really wants to be in the pit with the guy with the yellow animal head and the bloke in the Voivod shirt who keeps thanking us for making him stick around. There’s probably only two or three hundred mostly lucky to be passing at the right time people who know and yes, a lot of the details and the depth of what Concrete Vehicles are doing iss half lost in the lack of proper soundcheck and the rush of it all (at one point a chant of turn up the sax goes up) but two or three hundred people (if indeed it was that many?) know that Canada’s Concrete Vehicles were best band of the day by quite a few miles…
There’s five minutes between Concrete Vehicles ending and Amyl and The Sniffersgoing on on the main stage but we’ve got our Organ heads on now and we need to stick around and tell people who the band they’ve just seen are, the band themselves have faile dto tell anyone, and there’s no sign of a band name anywhere (it is nothing to do with us, we’re not involved in any kind of way, it is just what Organ has always been about, exciting new bands like Concrete Vehicles and spreading the word, it is what we do, what we’ve always done. Why don’t bands have flyers and people with clipboards and mailing lists any more?).
Now everyone loves Amyl and The Sniffers, I really should love Amyl and The Sniffers and their high energy striped down Australian punk rawk and raucious roll. I do so love things like this, I love Rose Tattoo (I love that we once got to put on a Rose Tattoo gig, that is one of the all time Organ highlights), I loved (and still love) Bon Scott’s raw version of AC/DC and I loved those Plasmatics but this is far more Melbourne pub rock than NY Wendy O’Williams punk. True, Amy Taylor is equally as cool as Wendy O was and maybe a little more in control of things, she likes to be in control, she makes that clear, she shouts about how she likes to be proved right but the truth is I just can’t get into them for any length of time, I can’t get past that short rush and that thirty seconds after the sniff she talks of before they give you that headache (hey, she said it, not me!), I can’t quite get into them when I really should love them and again and this evening I just can’t as thoughts turn to getting over to that other side of site in time for a good spot for Idles via a bit of EsDeeKid and his inch-thick Scouse-accented rap..
There’s a massive on site buzz for EsDeeKid, the big blue tent is full to bursting, the heat is coming off it, there’s a real sense anticipation in the air, the security are in a bit of a panic as people try to get in and we’re standing on the outside looking at the inside while his phone is having a tantrum. Apparently he’s young, lit and handsome, well so he says, who knows? He’s always under that balaclava and full of menace and give us yer odds la. It looks mad in there, he’s going down a storm, the cheers are louder than loud and some of those lines of his are certainly colourful but we’ve got Idles on our mind and we need a decent spot for the Bristol band’s return to the same stage and to the scene of their 2022 triumph, four years on and Idles are headlining the great big second stage over on that side of the site again….
There’s a lot happened in the world since the utter triumph of 2022, a lot has happened with Idles as well as with the world. 2022 was almost a cap on the first bit of idles as a band, that rapid rise from small rooms, that initial word of mouth to the sense of them being something a little more than just another band – bigger venues, bigger voices, and not just gigs, East London art shows, questions, challenges, a growing power, the right set of observations made, a band who needed to care, a band to really care about and all booked ended with that big circle pit in Victoria Park as the East London Summer of 2022 began to draw to an end. Four years ago they were brilliant, a musical highlight of any year, they really did tear it up that evening and quite honestly I can’t remember much about headliners Gorillas coming on afterwards that night (I just had to look up our review to recall who it actually was trying to follow the triumph of Idles that night). A lot has happened since that night in 2022, globally I mean: wars, economies, global power in wrong hands, the daily dangers of Trump, over here the horror of Farage and his gang of self-serving crooks and a frightened media who back them again and again, the hopelessness of the Middle East and the plight of so many people, the mess of American action against Iran and the global fallout of that one, seemingly no sight of an end to Russia’s activities, the disappointment of various UK governments and leaders since Idles last played the park in ’22, the post Brexit fall out and the feeling that everything is on a back foot, that and the increasing lack of tolerance and oh yes, the ever increasing danger of climate change that really is falling way down the pecking order of priorities when it really should be right at the very top of everybody’s lists – no good chanting about the political situation in the Middle East if we all end up on a dead planet and the crop can’t grow for anyone and…. there’s a lot happened since that Idles triumph of 2022…
Idles are (almost) a mainstay now, they’re on our tellies at Glastonbloofybury, they’ve been at so many festivals, their t-shirts are everywhere, when did you last go to a major railway station without someone passing in an Idles shirt? Got talking to someone in one the day before All points East at a David Hockney exhibition, that doesn’t seem strange now, I kind of like that that is the case. It isn’t that they’re a different band now, they’ve just evolved, matured isn’t quite the right word, that implies that they weren’t that before, Idles always have been both musically and politically on the button (do you separate the two with Idles? Probably not, they are a rather obviously political band and rightly so, there’s is the politics of life, the politics of everything, the politics of art and lying in Tracey Emin’s bed listening to the Fall, they are an everything band. Idles are a band who matter, we need their energy when we’re tired, they’re a band who’s energy is right and in their most recent album, 2024’s Tangk they’re a band who want to musically challenge themselves rather than just do it all again. Without watering anything down, without losing any of that early energy (that energy is still here coming from the big stage, sack-loads of it). Idles are deeper now, slightly darker, slightly brighter, bolder, looking further, this is a different set and a different feeling back on the same stage in the same slot as they were in in 2022; it feels different, the crowd feels different, it all feels slightly different, not so triumphant, a bit more reflective, still as confrontational, still saying it, still doing it, still cutting it and yes, just as good if not even better. It isn’t (just) raw energy now, still that freight train, still that unity pulling band and audience together, a little more now though. And it has been a long four years for us all. The material from Tangk in there with what is almost a greatest hits set of material from all four of their fine albums. There’s more dimension now, more colour, more consideration, a slightly different palette, this is of course a good thing and if it had just been a repeat of 2022 that would have been a bit of a disappointment, almost a let down. Idles aren’t the kind of band to let you down, to let themselves down, to allow themselves to become last year’s news. This feels different to 2022, it feels (just as) right, it feels like more, they might be from Bristol and Joe Talbot might be a Welshman but this feels like a homecoming, it feels like a band four albums in and ready to go again or is that just us the audience hoping they are? We do rather need bands like Idles, we do need this added colour alongside the car crash and the glorious rush of Danny Nedelko and everything that songs says so brilliantly, we do need the smile of Dancer and that excellent almost tribal ending of it all tonight as the sun sets and the moon rises over them. Idles back in the park on their stage in 2026, four years on from that triumph and we’re ready for them to go some more, we probably need them to go some more, we probably need what they do next and I like that we don’t quite know what their next will be. This was slightly different to 2022, it was just as good, it was a touch darker, it was probably better, they are fighting fit, saving themselves and dancing in the dust, they are once again tonight, rather special…
Time to turn to Deftones then, turn and and join the mass migration to the other side of the festival once more, for even more dust to me kicked up as we all head to the main stage and how big is this thing (actually it is really good in terms of people watching, people drawing), I must admit that Deftones, as popular are they still quite clearly are, have never quite done it for me. I have tried to get with them so many times, i tried to get with their Adrenaline back there in my own Summers of the 90s, I always thought Miocene or maybe Pulkas were better options or at least had better potential, that a dozen or so other bands of a similar nature (mostly from over here) that didn’t get a hundredth of the attention from the UK press or the breaks or the stings pulled back there were better. And here we are thirty odd years on and all the others are mostly forgotten while the great big American band are still making albums that I still try to get into but never quite can. Sure, there’s great moments, there’s times when they get their mix of colours right, there are (fleeting) moments tonight that are just right, riffs that crunch through the mood and the drama of it all before they drift off again, and yes, they’re going down a storm here and their hits make for big circle pits (and that damn dust and this ain’t no place to be at the mercy of a contact lensand as blind as a bat without it!) and I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade (although some rain would be a merciful release as the park’s trees keep telling us – those trees are not enjoying this summer, they do really want to shove it). I mean the stage set looks suitable moody, the light show, the projections, the atmosphere, the sense of it, the darkness of it all – the colours are just right, the way it all kind of flows in an almost majestic way under the darkness of the East London sky and the occasional screech of a kept awake parakeet (wonder how the park’s many foxes are dealing with it all?). Deftones do have their own way of things, 50,000 people are mostly lapping it up, the band are clearly enjoying some kind of almost born again late-career renaissance and good on ’em, they do have a particular dynamic, I guess they do do that subtle thing of theirs rather well and their newer material feels as strong as the ‘classics’ and that riff there, as good as it is, never did quite did dig that hole to the pit of my soul like some riffs did back there. it feels kind of right to just drift off again, to have Deftones doing their thing behind us as we exit the park and find ourselves back home and sitting outside the Organ bunker in time to hear them share their encore and their cherry waves with half of Hackney.
Hey, it wasn’t perfect, the beer was overpriced, the ticket as overly expensive as these things are now, the water situation a touch cynical and for all the political statement not one mention of climate change in the middle of a park clearly shouting about it, but once again, as has been the case many times in recent years, the positives outweighed the negatives and once more, on this one day of the six at least (we can’t speak for the other days) once more delivered. How much longer can big things like this happen though? For how much longer can bands and circuses like this fly around the globe and do what they’re doing to places like Victoria Park… (sw)
Previously
As always, do click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slide show
THE ORGAN 