All Points East

You could have been forgiven for mistaking Hackney for the site of an El Alamein reunion the other Sunday. Victoria Park was cloaked in a cloud of dust. Tens of thousands of feet had scrubbed the grass clear during All Points East festival and were pounding the scorched earth. People were covering as much of their faces as they could with masks, pulled right up to their eyes, sunglasses blocking the remaining skin. I saw a couple of enterprising chaps wearing pilot’s goggles – and given the state of my eyes as I tried to move around the site, I don’t blame them. The Californian band Deftones were headlining the park as part of an event called Outbreak, in turn part of a multi-weekend series of events under the All Points East banner.

A few years ago, my nephew informed me that he and his friend were planning to come up to London for the weekend for the Wireless Festival. Did they need somewhere to stay? He looked at me like I was a mad old man. No, of course not. They were going to camp. In Finsbury Park. Because when you go to festivals, you camp. Thankfully, he didn’t turn up on the Victoria Line with his tent and then wonder why no one else was similarly equipped. Phoenix have the air of being as much a lifestyle choice as a pop group Inner-city festivals such as Wireless and All Points East are almost always a series of single-day events. APE is a ruthlessly programmed festival. Rather than try to be all things to all people, each day is targeted at some section of the festival-going population.