All Points East: Field Day brings the bass and beats

As the sunshine peaked through clouds, the third day of All Points East festival came alive with electronic music blaring across the festival's six stages.

Acts like Jaguar, IMOGEN, Flip The Lid, Yung Singh and Sofia Kourtesis started the day off with a bang.

All Points East's Field Day, 2021. (Image: Holly Chant)

And, as evening approaches plenty more music is set to fill the east London park, including headliners BICEP who will be on the Victoria Park East stage at 9pm.

BICEP is a London-based Belfast-born due Matt Mcbriar and Andy Ferguson, known as two of the most trusted curators of electronic music in the past decade.

ELLES on The FireStone Stage at All Points East. (Image: Holly Chant)

Revellers will also get to dance the night away to great acts like the Blessed Madonna, Prospa, Floorplan, ELLES and Elkka.

Saturday night at All Points East saw Jamie xx bring London’s party back with an old school rave on day two of All Points East 2021.

His electrifying performance set Victoria Park alight, with tune after tune. Bandmate Romy, who took to the North stage earlier in the day, partied along in the crowd alongside thousands of festival ravers.

Kano and his gospel quintet took to the main stage to celebrate his East Ham roots and paint a picture of his local area. Taking over Victoria Park as night fell, Kano added his voice to the diatribe against generations of racism. Calling for community from the crowd, with the lingering final lyric from the choir, “If we don’t hold each other down, we will make it.”

With all screens displaying the famous Marcus Rashford mural in Withington, Kano and his choir launched into his powerful hit ‘This is England’, while also clearly making his admiration of his East London heritage known, Kano proclaimed: “You can’t take the manor out of us, we’re in East London now.”

North London rapper Little Simz took to the West Stage, welcomed by one of the biggest crowds of the day as she performed popular tracks ‘Venom’, ‘101 FM’ and ‘Selfish’. The Mercury Prize nominee exclusively gave All Points East a debut live performance of ‘Point and Kill’ from her upcoming album Sometime I Might Be An Introvert, with special guest Obongjayar joining her on stage.

The ecstatic crowd’s excitement could be felt on stage as Little Simz took a moment to thank the crowd for joining her, saying: “This is mad, I used to play Victoria Park when I was like 17 to about 20 people and now I'm on stage performing to all you guys.”

Arriving into East London by helicopter, slowthai turned up the heat with a rampant performance including massive numbers ‘Doorman’, ‘Inglorious’ and ‘CANCELLED.’

The UK no.1 album rapper, who performed shoeless, used the crowd's energy to send a message of self belief and resilience: “Let’s show the world we aren’t messing about, this is the UK baby.”

The Northampton musician built the energy throughout his set which included an explosive performance of ‘MAZZA’ with fire launching from the stage, he said: “I came straight from Reading to here... they didn’t let us use fire, I think I lost my eyebrows.”

Saxophonist Nubya Garcia brought the sunshine with her to Victoria Park, while BRIT award winning Arlo Parks performed her first ever London festival and was blown away by the size of the crowd watching on, remarking: “It fills me up, I started off making songs in my bedroom and now i’m performing for you guys in my hometown.”

Also enjoying the vibrant atmosphere was Tom Misch, playing his first gig in two years. He was joined onstage by his sister, Polly Misch, who performed their 2017 hit single ‘Movie’.

This year BBC Radio 6 Music took over the iconic All Points East ‘X’ stage, hosting The 6 Music stage for the entire weekend. A host of DJs including Coco Maria & Shy FX brought the daytime beats before BBC Radio 6’s very own Giles Peterson warmed up the decks for the headline act of his curated line-up, Dan Shake.

Learn more at www.allpointseastfestival.com