More about: GorillazPusha TIdlesSelf Esteemremi wolfWillow KayneKenny Beats

Friday at London’s Victoria Park saw a Gorillaz-headlined niche line-up cut the ribbon on this year’s All Points East festival, attracting a mixed bag of festival goers, all having successfully battled the TFL strikes with the raring anticipation for a day of epic live music — supplemented, of course, by many Red Stripes and White Claws.

Earlier acts of the day include the uber-talented Remi Wolf, opening with the loud and proud belter ‘Liquor Store’ and closing with the groovy bangers ‘Disco Man’ and ‘Photo ID’. With all the crazy energy and outstanding vocals Remi provides onstage, it’s impossible to not jump along in delight. Feminist icon Self Esteem also takes stage early doors, singing in front of a bannered backdrop, which poses the necessary question in large font: 'MALE PILL WHEN?'. She takes no shit, and plays the fan favourites ‘I Do This All The Time’ and ‘Prioritise Pleasure’. 

A vibe switch takes place over on the East Stage from the New York rapper Pusha T. With a left hand side of stage view blocking out the ‘PU’ of the huge backing banner, ‘SHA T’ takes to the stage for a set running through the highlights of his discography including Drake diss track ‘Diet Coke’, the mega-catchy ‘Scrape It Off’ and the hard-hitting ‘If You Know You Know’. The big screen flits between the rapper and his die-hard fans in the front row, spitting back every lyric (with some fairly distressed-looking faces as they try to remember them all). As his time runs out, Pusha announces, “They tryna tell me my set’s over but I ain’t finished yet”. His huge chain dazzles in the London sun as Pusha finishes off the set with a medley of his most popular songs including the notorious collabs with Kanye West 2012 hip hop banger ‘Mercy’ and the cathartic ‘Runaway’, sending the crowd into a state of pandemonium.  

The hip-hop fans are kept happy as everyone’s favourite producer Kenny Beats DJs on the North Stage. Refusing to stick to one sound, Kenny flits from Kylie Minogue’s ‘Can’t Get You Outta My Head’ to Central Cee’s ‘Doja’, with his iconic Gumby graphic flailing about in the backdrop. Kenny, of course, plays Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Family Ties’, recreating the viral Kenny set clips, a guaranteed play to please the crowd of party people.

Next door on the BMW Play Next Stage is an attitude-heavy set from rising star and ultimate cool girl Willow Kayne. Gigwise had a moment to sit down with her backstage to chat all things Willow Kayne. On stage, she reels off stick-it-to-the-hater tunes ‘Final Notice’ and ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’, laced with heavy DnB and Jungle influences which she cites as reminiscent of her upbringing in the Bristol music scene - “I loved a free party in the west country, DnB was everywhere. Even my parents were banging out some old school DnB”. 

She also performs sneak peak of new track ‘Rat Race’, out today, which she labels as the “chillest one I’ve ever put out”, as it details the unsettling feeling of entering the music industry “and not knowing what to do with the fear”. The crowd huddled around the stage eagerly egging on Willow are 95% Gen-Z and most likely fans of Willow from TikTok. When asked about the app, the 21 year-old notes: “I was sour about TikTok for a long time but it’s the first time in music where as the artist you have so much more control. You take it in your own hands to blow up. The only thing I fear is to be known for being a TikTok musician. I’ve been doing this way longer than the app existed”. With her first festival a mere year ago, Willow knows how to amp up a crowd and does so successfully in her short and sweet All Points East set. The rising star is definitely one to watch. 

Punk-rock royalty IDLES take to the Ray Ban West stage as the sun sets romantically on the horizon. The crowd alone serves as entertainment, as the eccentric mix of people choose how to best move their bodies to the music, whether thats play-fighting, two stepping or hitting the can-can. IDLES play favourites including ‘Never Fight A Man with A Perm’ and ‘Danny Nedelko’, with front man Joe Talbot orchestrating mosh pits, crowd surfing and screaming at the the top of his lungs, as always. How Talbot still has functioning vocal chords remains a mystery to all. The set closes with the rowdy ‘Rottweiler’ and waves of the crowd begin to prematurely flock, marching over to the opposite side of the festival to lock in their positions for the headliner set. 

...and without further ado, Gorillaz take to the main stage for a 23 song jam-packed two hour set. The Leytonstone-raised Damon Albarn labels the show as “the most local gig I’ve ever played in my life”, before opening with ‘M1A1’. The frontman pays several visits to the front row, getting his walkie-talkie mic cable wrapped up in crowd and donning a fan-gifted blue wig for a rendition of the atmospheric ‘Rhinestone Eyes’. 

The show is stuffed full with guests: Popcaan comes out for ‘Saturn Barz’; Mos Def for ‘Stylo’; The Clash’s Paul Simonon for ‘Plastic Beach’, and most exciting of all, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker comes out to a crowd in sheer disbelief, to play the world premiere of their upcoming track together ‘New Gold’.  A strange cameo to say the least was of South African singer Moonchild Sannelly to play ‘With Love to an Ex’, with Damon putting on a pink cloak and performing some bizarre sort of ceremony which left the audience confused and ultimately a bit cringed out. His mic gets caught in the cloak’s hood, momentarily dragging Albarn off stage which makes the whole display a lot funnier. N.B. Moonchild herself still slayed throughout the weird display.

All is soon forgotten with a back to back of ‘Dirty Harry’ into ‘DARE’, assisted by the legendary Shaun Ryder, into ‘Momentary Bliss’ to close the night for good. Oh wait, obviously not. The audience negotiates an encore with a mixed bag of shouts for “one more song" or “three more songs” or just singing “Windmill, windmill… I got sunshine in a bag” in hopes for their unplayed favourite tracks. De La Soul’s Kelvin Mercer comes out to perform a bed time story into a “wake tf up” message, ordering the crowd to put both hands up and recite mantras of self-love. The uber-nostalgic ‘Feel Good Inc.’ blares through the speakers and is matched in energy with a highly-anticipated closer of ‘Clint Eastwood’ to send all the Gorillaz die-hards belting the hook their whole journey home through the night. The encore serves as the cherry on top to a fantastic day of live music at Victoria Park. 

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More about: GorillazPusha TIdlesSelf Esteemremi wolfWillow KayneKenny Beats