Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds headline a theatrical finale at All Points East at Victoria Park

Sunday is a theatrical finale to All Points East Festival with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds headlining. Late afternoon jazz provides an appropriate warmup at the Ray-Ban West Stage, where Robert Glasper delivers a relaxed 30-minute set, a continuous jam that blends hits from his own discography with those of other artists. Glasper’s staple electric piano creates a swirling, seamless flow, punctuated only by a blistering drum solo. 

Cave himself is like a brash, off-kilter yet captivating ringmaster conducting marathon narratives. There is something cult-like to the atmosphere he conjures, and the herds of fans that charge to his feet adore it. The artist’s deep vocals vibrate through the darkness just fallen, his disposition idiosyncratic and unpredictable. The melancholic O Children chugs along, rising and falling alongside choral singers and a violin melody amplified like a guitar. Bright Horses is one of countless slow, shadowy ballads, this one including sepia-tone screens and the arrival of a red velvet backdrop. In contrast, Cave roars through an extended Jubilee Street, a thunderous, head-banging affair. The monstrous set tears up any expectations one might have of the band with eerie presence and extravagant confidence. 

Yet the day is not short of frenetic energy elsewhere. Earlier on, The Dinner Party fill the Play Next Stage with a burlesque, trance-like spirit, a fresh burst of decadent rock’n’roll that feels like a youthful rendition of The Cranberries, and on the East Stage, Anna Calvi, androgynous in her black suit and crisp, white shirt, pours the same visceral energy of her vocals into her guitar, sliding through notes as if the instrument is an extension of her voice. At her highest points, that passion becomes a raw, though not unbounded scream, and between, tracks like Don’t Beat the Girl out of My Boy provide liberating catharsis – as does Michael Kiwanuka, the soothing soul that calms the air before the storm of Nick Cave. Supported by unwavering backing vocals, he glides through songs such as Cold Little Heart with ease. His textured acoustics are understated beneath rich, soft vocals, and his presence is a warm and peaceful breather. 

Ultimate catharsis, however, comes from The Smile, Thom Yorke’s new venture alongside Johnny Greenwood and Tom Skinner. Their set consists of the band’s first album release, A Light for Attracting Attention, but includes the unreleased Bending Hectic, a track that cascades, formless yet hypnotic in its uncertain trajectory. Open the Floodgates is dreamy and delicate, catching the audience’s breath, whilst the synthesised melody of The Same pulsates in a perpetual, dystopian loop. The cohesion of the three, who, apart from Skinner on drums, jump between a playground of instruments, is most exemplified in heavier tracks such as We Don’t Know What Tomorrow Brings, with its driving repetition of the title line matched by punching bass and percussion. Inevitably, The Smile exist within the realms of their precedent Radiohead. Nearly every song finds new shades and tension release in key changes, and time patterns remain ever-complex, even trippy. But neatly interwoven and impeccably played instrumentation lays ground for Yorke’s ghostly vocals, drifting untethered atop – agonising and angelic in a way only he can achieve. The hour passes too fast, though it does so with a poised sense of introspection, unravelling with an atmosphere quite impossible to articulate. 

Georgia Howlett
Photos: Ambra Vernuccio (except header by Jennifer McCord)

For further information and future events visit Nick Cave’s website here.

All Points East is on at Victoria Park from 19^th until 20^th August and from 25^th until 28^th August 2022. For further information visit here.

Watch the video for the single I Need You here: