Festival Review: twenty one pilots at All Points East
East is very much up – Twenty One Pilots headline a barnstorming closing night for All Points East that has Victoria Park in party mode
On a weekend that included torrential rain at festivals like Creamfields, Reading and Leeds, Forwards and Electric Picnic, Twenty One Pilots delivered a show, shockingly, in the dry (more or less, until the final few songs) – the great dustbowls of All Points East’s Victoria Park transformed into a moderately less dustbowl field but still very much a dustbowl that feels like you’re hurtling down the fury road with Mad Max or on the desert planet of Arrakis leading a bunch of fremen into battle against a giant sandworm everytime you have to move stages to get from one end of the venue to the other.
Unlike other festivals that ran through All Points East this felt like a different weekend; everyone was very much there with one artist in mind – Twenty One Pilots, the My Chemical Romance of their generation, in terms of storytelling prospect if not musically, their meteoric growth being completely in tow with a large gen-z heavy crowd. Yet the support chosen for the day – themed around Twenty-One Pilots’ music with plenty of overlap, are delightful, and have the hard task of winning bands away from the main stage where barricaders have spent camping overnight in Mile End to see them. It is a missed opportunity to come for the hole festival just to see one band – and half•alive’s immediately prove that.
Formed in Long Beach, California – half•alive immediately come on in suits and feel like a mix of Talking Heads and Beatles tribute act, calling to mind Freddie Mercury by leaning into Ay-Oh’s. They have a touch of Yard Act out about them – kinda like the American version of Yard Act; and like Yard Act they bring their dancers in tow for a fun-filled set. We are treated to the live debut of ‘Billions’ and their new EP, which is happy, uplifting and gets the crowd dancing – “it’s a new world / it’s a bad dream” sings with the uplifting dancing groove that you’ve come to expect. half•alive’s frontman Josh Taylor has distanced a transition away from punk and they feel like they fit right at home on this lineup; the choreography being on point and the energy being returned by the audience. The minimalistic production caters to Taylor’s vocals – and we get live debuts of ‘The Wolf’ and ‘W2W’ which have the audience on tenterhooks. It’s a happy, go lucky production with immense care that you can’t help but have a good time to – the perfect curtain-raiser of an opener that really gets those who dare to venture away from the barricade into a good mood.
We catch the tail end of Hot Milk; a pop-punk upstart group that run through A Call To the Void and deliver a twisted; nightmare version of ‘Candy Coated Lie$’ that goes down a storm. ‘BREATHING UNDERWATER, BLOODSTREAM’ and ‘Glass Spiders’ led the set into show closer ‘PARTY ON MY DEATHBED’, as the East Stage comes alive. Hot Milk are bouncy, fun and energetic – the Manchester duo bringing Jim and Han’s vocals to the table to deliver a strategy that works. Both make the most out of the audience and the interaction with the crowd helps get them warmed up – they have the unenviable slot of being on the same stage as Twenty One Pilots, at their festival – and they more than deliver to the occasion provided for them. Their latest album ‘Corporation P.O.P’ has them tap into the alternative atmosphere of the day – a statement piece that follows on the sense of nature of the band at their prolific best.
The main band that I am here for today is Kid Kapichi on North Stage immediately after; and we arrive to a crowd that is fully engaged and dancing along: everyone at All Points East today seems to be in party mode, vibing and enjoying the music in good spirits – here to have a good time. I saw them at the 2024 ‘There Goes the Neighbourhood’ album tour at Kentish Town but it’s clear that with a member reshuffle and a new album out; this isn’t 2024 anymore and Kid Kapichi find themselves proving they’re still relevant with relative ease, only getting bigger and better. ‘Fearless Nature’ goes down a storm as do the tracks that they pull from older material – it’s a politically charged set that owes much to their collaboration with Bob Vylan for ‘New England’ – and ‘Let’s Get to Work’ pulls the crowd into their groove from the off, enlisting Miles Gill and Lee Martin after Ben & George’s farewell. The transition is seamless, and the band continue making music with the best of them. Three bands in it becomes clear there’s a vibe of party here – which the bands and the crowd are happy to oblige.
Gang of Youths are a band I have been wanting to see for a long time and they are the perfect mid-afternoon booking, though the clash with Nova Twins, Honey Revenge and rising stars Artio is brutal, as it has been for new bands across the festival. Their band is still sentimental and there’s an air of nostalgia here – they’ve been around a while at this point, and continue to delight. David Le’aupepe is funny and a delight bursting with charisma on stage – able to switch between having a ball and sounding completely sincere at any moment. The Sydney five piece band don’t try to be anything that they aren’t and embrace the messy, funny and sentimental fun that comes with it – the live performance is joyous and such a good time it’s hard not to embrace the community that comes along for the ride. The tribute to Dolly Parton comes in spades; most acts have done covers this weekend, that is not Gang of Youths’ style - their reflection talks about their time Le’aupepe spent in Nashville and his partner being from North Carolina.
Two stops before the big one and a trip over to the E3 stage leads us to Australian punk rockers Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers, the wonderfully named upstarts following in the wake of Amyl and the Sniffers who just look happy to be here and are understandably awed when Twenty One Pilots’ frontman Tyler Joseph reads their name out on stage alongside pretty much the entire lineup. You feel at their own venue they could draw a mosh and they almost do here – it pretty much makes stops at The Lexington and MOTH Club around this weekend essential; and they go absolutely nuts with the opportunity provided to them. ‘I Used to Be Fun’ captures the growing pains of aging and refusing to let it stop you from enjoying yourself when you were younger – “it’s not my fault it’s just how I came to be and now I’m old it’s all crashing down on me” – is instantly relatable and talks about the growing pain of having friends that eventually move out and move far away; that you have contact with but can’t see. It hits – and there’s just hit after hit here. My favourite discovery of the weekend has to be Teen Jesus and I have a feeling much with Amyl and the Sniffers; who played last week at the same festival on the headline stage, Teen Jesus could very much well end up back at All Points East a lot higher up the billing one day.
Next up on the East Stage is Wunderhorse; Cornwall’s finest. Having followed them all the way from small bars in Cornwall this is the first time I get the chance to see them on the biggest stage possible and it is kind of disappointing that by this point, especially compared to IDLES who were on before Deftones the week prior, that the crowd is half empty and people are peeling off long before the headliners. But those who embrace the charm of Wunderhorse and stay to the end are rewarded with a magnetic set that keeps the energy levels in the room high and magnetic from start to finish – the bulk of the setlist pulled from second album Midas, but there’s room for debut record Cub too, even if their strongest single, ‘Leader of the Pack’ is cut, which is a disappointment to some fans. But the setlist is stacked at this point for Wunderhorse to survive without it: Cub’s barnstormers ‘Butterlfies’ and ‘Teal’ go down a storm. ‘Teal’ captures the magnetic feel of crying alone in a room but at the same time; feeling oddly happy about it? It’s warm and magnetic – instantly recalling a sense of nostalgia: “you got a gift, man, Go and be something. If I was in your shoes, I would be jumping,” makes the case for Wunderhorse being one of the better bands under the ‘indie poo’ trend that really find a way to stand out; offering the ability to ramp up a crowd even when by their own admission, they were feeling “pretty ragged, but [were] going to give [the audience] everything” they had.
Headliners Twenty One Pilots live up to the occasion. I saw them back in Rock Werchter in the summer but didn’t get the chance to see their own full set; that was rectified here and being in the crowd really makes the enjoyment factor go up. Fans of ‘Breach’ and ‘Blurryface’ are most served here with a mind-blowing 29 song setlist that feels monumental in length and puts most bands of their current generation to shame with their touring output. For those who have watched them go from clubs to headline slots it is incredibly rewarding; the ‘Overcompensate’, ‘The Contract’ open and the crowd are singing, enjoying and dancing along. Emi Grace; who played earlier in the day – gets the chance to come out and perform the live debut of collab ‘Robot Voices’ – the band making a maximalist pop record that feels just about unlike what any other band would make out there today. There is a Twenty One Pilots sound that feels utterly unique and that’s why they are so polarising – you’ll rarely find someone who has a ‘mixed’ opinion of the band – you’ll either love them or you hate them. I’ll admit I was in the ‘unconvinced’ category at first; but there was something about that evening; the good, strong party vibes of the crowd that kept everything in check and having a good time – everyone dancing and having the time of their lives – it was hard not to get swept up in.
Their high concept records allow the band to brazenly attempt a ‘Seven Nation Army’ cover with the approval of Jack White by video clip in the back half of the set. It’s no Jack White – who I saw earlier in the week at Hammersmith Apollo; but in terms of Twenty One Pilots, there’s few bands who know how to play to a largely British crowd who love a ‘Seven Nation Army’ singalong quite like Twenty One Pilots. Their covers are mixed and perhaps largely unnecessary when most fans are here to see Twenty One Pilots songs but all part of the theatrics of a festival headline slot that is the band’s only UK date: ‘Let it Be’ gets a run-out that fairs better than ‘Creep’ during the bridge of ‘Drum Show’. In what perhaps is a once-in-a-lifetime event for security guard Lucas; Tyler lets the audience lean into ‘Ride’ and has Lucas involved in the song with him.
It’s heartfelt, with few bands better at knowing exactly where they stand and where they appeal to their fans. Their regular big-show arena spectacle goes down a storm enlisting the drummer to climb to the lofty peaks of the mid-show sound stage above a searing burst of flame that almost – with the recent warnings about bonfires in the UK you begin to worry could’ve burnt down the whole of Victoria Park – but there is enough rain in recent months that allows it to slide. Josh Dun is magnetic and you feel the pull of the crowd chanting to Twenty One Pilots’ daredevil stunts – and it’s easy to see the band as forebears for the meteoric rise of Sleep Token that has come in their wake; and bands like President. Without Twenty One Pilots none of this would be possible. And you buy into the hype of the crowd and their stripes have been earned – Jack White’s a fan, Turnstile recruited Adam Hawkins, their engineer to work on their records, and they’re viewed as a favourite of Billie Eilish in her formative years. It’s easy to see why when grouping all of these artists together where Twenty One Pilots’ sound came from – appropriately unique and just about unlike any other band out there today.
Till next year, then All Points East. This year had much better sound quality than prior; I’d like to point out – and you can tell that the festival has listened to the many, many complains. Even if it felt like at times, returning to the fields of Arrakis, or embracing the madness of the Fury Road with the dustbowl pits that meant wearing face masks was borderline essential, it’s what comes with launching a festival at the tailend of a summer-long heatwave.
Photocredit @BethanMillerCo