“I think this is literally one of the best lineups I’ve ever been part of,” Lorde tells the crowd during her headline All Points East show. “It’s crazy, I went around this afternoon and watched people and I was struck by what this group of artists are doing, I felt so honoured to be a part of it.“
She’s not wrong, it’s a stacked bill for the second day of this year’s All Points East Festival. There’s Rose Gray — whose electric dance-pop lives up to her Instagram promist that the pop girls are taking over Vicky P, and Oklou, who offers an ethereal set fuelled by dramatic lighting and dry ice, and scintillating synth-pop.
And then there’s Audrey Hobert, who opens her show with a moment of pure clownery: performing opener ‘I like to touch people’ in comical disguise glasses and a lengthy trench coat. Said trench coat is long enough to hit the floor, even with Audrey performing it stood on a chair – and is eventually stripped off to reveal…another trench coat beneath it.
This sets the tone for her slick afternoon set — one that sees her earworm quirky-pop coupled with theatrics: a choreographed dance routine from Audrey and her entire band before ‘Wet Hair’, plenty of hair whipping and twirling across the stage throughout, and her now trademark tiny trampoline for closing belter ‘Sue Me’. It’s a sugar-rush that’s part theatre kid, part pop-punk hero, and is wickedly good fun.
Audrey’s followed on the main stage — or East Stage — by popstar of the moment Zara Larsson. The pitch-perfect performance starts strong: following an electric rendition of ‘Midnight Sun’, Zara explains that we’re witnessing herstory, before welcoming PinkPantheress to the stage for the first-ever live rendition of ‘Stateside’.
It’s high octane and bedazzled: megawatt pop tunes, jaw-dropping choreography, and a vocal masterclass in the form of a second guest appearance from MNEK for ‘Never Forget You’ — where Zara and MNEK’s mic were on.
The end of Zara’s set marks a mass migration from the East Stage to the North Arena, to catch PinkPantheress. It’s so busy that that area of site ends up blocked off, with the North Arena tent full to the brim. Disappointed punters are left to watch on a screen outside. Opening with Pink’s second performance of ‘Stateside’ of the day — this time solo — from afar, fans can glimpse the vibey visuals and hear the throbbing bass, the show transforming the tent into a club.
With the sun set, revellers head back to the East Stage for Lorde. Opening with breakout single, the megalithic ‘Royals’, the show transports you to an underground club: industrial staging, dynamic strobe lighting, and a setlist that pulls from Lorde’s more late-night offerings. Understandably it skews heavily to tracks from latest record ‘Virgin’, with only one outing of tunes from its predecessor ‘Solar Power’ (a lush rendition of ‘Oceanic Feeling’).
It’s dynamic and theatrical — two dancers accompany Lorde with physical and creative movement. The sparse staging is bold and used cleverly: Lorde performs to a camera behind a glass panel for ‘Shapeshifter’, squishing her face up against it; and she sings from a raised platform for ‘Current Affairs’ her band and dancers wandering below her, emphasising the tangled emotions and isolation of the song. In ‘Liability’ a video of her younger self is projected onto her shirt, while ‘Man Of The Year’ sees her don a jacket that emits bright red lasers.
There’s moments of pure jubilation: a mass singalong to her verse on Charli XCX’s ‘Girl, so confusing’, which runs straight into the pure euphoria of ‘Green Light’.
And it feels full circle, too. “I’ve been waiting for this day, like I said, for a long time” she reveals during the set. “It’s very cool as I played the first ever All Points East, I was 22 years old…and I thought it was a really cool festival I was lucky to be playing, and now to be your headliner is so crazy!”
She later reflects to the crowd: “I’ve been making music since I was a teenager… I just sang into my family desktop computer, into photobooth, to see what would happen”. What would happen would eventually lead Lorde to All Points East today — a pop star who does things on her own terms, dazzling the sold-out crowd of revellers in a triumphant night at Victoria Park.
