Thursday Psychedelia at All Points East 2022: Tame Impala headline a dreamy evening

Thursday was the day of psychedelia in Victoria Park, with Australian fuzz wizards Tame Impala headlining the main stage. Earlier on in the day mysterious Swedish psychedelics Goat entertained London;. the band always perform in freaky masks – some shamanistic with head dresses, some fringed, some like creepy dolls. Over sinuous groves, the two female lead singers writhe and prance, chanting lyrics that can be vaguely threatening (Run to Your Mama) and at times downright raunchy (Fill My Mouth). The latter is a highlight, with a rock flute solo that deserves a mention. Looking past the aesthetic, which is perhaps a little intimidating, they are spectacular musicians who deserve to be better rated than they are. Their music is rangy and needs space to breathe and develop, so it was a shame to see them ushered off stage, the lead singer shrugging to the crowd as if to say: “We want to play more but can’t.” Considering most of the DJs seemed to get an hour-long slot, it would have been nice to hear than 40 minutes from these guys.

Elsewhere, at the 6Music stage, Tom Ravenscroft lives up to his sobriquet, “Ravers”. Relaxed and charismatic in dark t-shirt and enviable hair, he plays a wild set that gets the kids dancing and the dads posing for group photos in front of the stage, excited to be there.

On the main stage, Caroline Polachek performs, ethereal in knee socks and chicly draped dress. She plays new material alongside an airy cover of The Corrs’ Breathless and the fantastically bonkers Bunny Is a Rider. Her voice is suited to sunset at a festival, serenely echoing over the darkening park.

Following that, headliners Tame Impala take to the stage. Tame Impala is multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker when recording and himself plus live band (Dominic Simper, Jay Watson, Cam Avery and Julien Barbagallo) for touring. Parker’s mix of layered, warm and fuzzy psychedelia and sherbet-sweet falsetto on introspective lyrics has struck a chord with listeners and 2012’s breakthrough album, Lonerism, was hugely successful. The followup, Current, whose inspiration Parker attributed to listening to the Bee Gees while tripping on magic mushrooms, has a single with more than a billion listens on Spotify. It’s not necessarily the music one would associate with racking up those sorts of numbers, but Parker has caught the ear of the industry and no one else can do what he does. He has collaborated with the likes if Mark Ronson, Kanye West, The Weeknd, The Flaming Lips, Pharrell Williams and The Streets, to name a few. But the song that really sent him stratospheric was Rihanna’s interpretation of New Person, Same Old Mistakes from 2016’s Anti. 

Parker says how glad he is to finally be back in London after the pandemic and that love is more than reciprocated. The show is spectacular: hyper-coloured films and animations mix with lasers and a circular rig that floats up and down extra-terrestrially amid the smoke, rainbow lights whirling. It perfectly suits the cosmic feel of the music, which is mesmerising. Rambunctious and gleefully non-sensical hit Elephant is a highlight, as are the dreamy Lost in Yesterday and Let It Happen. The keening Feels Like We Only Go Backwards is impossible not to sing along to, like mass introspection, but catchy. The show ends with an encore of The Less I Know the Better and New Person, Same Old Mistakes reverberating over the canals and bandstands of Victoria Park and the surrounding area: a dreamy evening.

Jessica Wall
Photos: Virginie Viche

For further information and future events visit Tame Impala’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 Elephant here: