words by Ana Bhardwaj

August Bank Holiday is probably the most exciting time for music and festival lovers (Glastonbury aside), especially those who don’t want to be re-living their post GCSE selves at Reading and Leeds, because All Points East takes over for multiple weekends. If you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t seen all the TikToks about festival-goers returning home looking like they’d been in a chimney, the dry weather conditions meant that the usually green Victoria Park turned into a British Burning Man, with dust taking over as the main headliner each day.

However, everyone came together in high spirits to celebrate and party with Scottish DJ and producer Barry Can’t Swim (aka Joshua Mainnie). It was his first ever London headline show that happened to fall on his birthday, which is a monumental achievement. Barry Can’t Swim has a great discography to his name, with a Mercury Prize nominated debut album, to his second record ‘Loner’ reaching the UK Top 10. He played some of his hit songs including ‘Sunsleeper’, ‘Kimbara’ and ‘How It Feels’, as well as bringing out special guest Låpsley and a full orchestra that really blew everyone away. 

Other highlights of the festival included Confidence Man, who brought their infectious energy and quirky stage presence and dance moves to take over the East Stage. To top it off, pop’s newest it-girl JADE graced us with her presence to perform a fully choreographed routine to ‘gossip’ – it wouldn’t be a Con Man x JADE collab without one! 

Shygirl was another standout act for me – her euphoric club pop bangers and stage presence with a huge disco ball and dancers to accompany her will forever be ingrained in my head. She obviously had to pay homage to the true party girl Charli XCX by performing ‘365’, reminding everyone that maybe brat summer really isn’t over. 

Dust and quiet speakers aside, All Points East is just a great day festival to celebrate the end of summer, and the lineups are consistently cohesive every year. I was lucky enough to experience this night with the privileges of an artist pass, but you’re always guaranteed a memorable time with the festival.