The first weekend of All Points East closed with a rain-soaked performance from Christine And The Queens – and if you’re going to catch a cold for someone, it would be Héloïse Letissier.
The faux-plural French singer, also known as just Chris, hosted one of her biggest headlining gigs to date at the London festival, following up dates headlined by The Chemical Brothers and The Strokes.
And her combination of indie hits with incredible dancing made her worthy of standing shoulder to shoulder with those juggernauts.
Minutes before Chris’s set began, the heavens opened, but this did nothing to dampen the spirits of fans, with a huge crowd gathering at the East Stage to hear the opener Comme si.
Dressed in a red shirt, Chris belted out her hits Girlfriend, iT, Tilted and Five Dollars, all while delivering moves reminscent of drag ballrooms. Whether you’re a fan of Christine And The Queens or not, there was no resisting the allure of the incredible dancing put forth on stage. Particular highlights were Chris’s solo breakdowns to Luniz’s I Got 5 On It and Nasty by Janet Jackson. This wasn’t just a standard indie set – this was a full performance.
But the tunes were just as good. As well as the aforementioned setlist staples, there were stunning moments with Les paradis perdus, seguing into Kanye West’s Heartless, The Stranger and a beautiful acapella rendition of David Bowie’s Heroes – made all the more striking by the stage ‘catching fire’ against the backdrop of torrential rain in Victoria Park.
Then there was the basically rainbow thread running through the whole set. Héloïse identifies as pansexual and genderqueer, and the main thing this writer left with was an overwhelmingly sense of queerness. Chris getting up close with female and male dancers occupied many of the routines, while before going into Tilted, she provided a sweet moment for anyone in the LGBTQ+ community in the crowd.
‘Out of place, out of time, out of control,’ she shouted. ‘But man it feels good to be out.’
As the set wrapped up with Intranquillite, I doubt a single person left Victoria Park without a massive crush.
Christine And The Queens All Points East setlist
Comme si
Girlfriend
iT
Science Fiction
The Walker
Tilted
5 Dollars
Les paradis perdus
The Stranger
Goya! Soda!
Damn (What Must A Woman Do)
Heroes (David Bowie cover)
Doesn’t Matter
Saint Claude
And the rest…
Beach House were given a slot in the West Stage, the only traditional tent at All Points East, and the venue suited their stunningly lit ambient backdrops to a tee. The dreampop band lulled the crowd into a big relaxing cuddle with songs including Dark Spring, Silver Soul and Drunk in LA.
The beautiful Myth remains a set highlight, and as the group concluded with Dive, it was a bit of a bummer to have to leave the tent and enter not a retro beachside scene, but the overcast Victoria Park.
Bringing summer to the festival in an entirely different way was Metronomy, who brought the English riviera to the park. The electro indie set haven’t released an album since 2016, so understandably, the biggest cheers came with classic songs like Heartbreaker and The Bay.
However, energy flagged with the introduction of new single Wedding Bells, with some of the set feeling a bit samey. And perhaps Metronomy were done a bit of a disservice with the second half of their set clashing with James Blake – with many people running off before heading Love Letters and The Look.
Anyone who did do that, though, was in for a treat as James Blake brought his unique brand of sad boy electronic R’n’B to the North Stage. Although stuck behind a keyboard for the set, James had the crowd in the palm of his hand as he sang Limit To Your Love, Assume Form and Retrograde, from his Mercury Prize winning album Overgrown.
While Christine And The Queens was a worthy headliner, James could have easily taken that spot.
Elsewhere at the festival, there was plenty of opportunity for new acts to shine on the Firestone stage, including John Nicholas, who performed his brand of bluesy pop rock on the up and coming stage.
Speaking about how tough is is for new musicians to break into the scene, John told Metro.co.uk: ‘Talent is part of it but I think it’s persistence and playing the hard shows and the shows where there’s no one there, and it’s playing through those stuff and if you can almost get through that round, you can start pushing it to…but it’s hard, it’s not easy to play a gig and have someone half clapping at the back while everybody else chats.
‘Realistically, you have your three month leap, six-month leap freak out – cause I do this full-time and a bit of teaching and gigging – and you have a crazy thing of going I need a proper job. It’s the case of being driven and I can’t do anything else, this is what I enjoy doing.
‘There’s just so many people doing it, you’re in the age of social media and everyone can give themselves a platform straight away, it’s difficult to sort of stand out and be different. That’s the challenge, it’s to find your sort of unique point. Everyone’s gotta have a social media presence and just pushing that; for me, I just love playing live, that’s how I win over fans and you know, just playing and sing to people and that’s how they might be converted into fans and that sort of transfers over to social media.’
All Points East continues next week with headliners Mumford And Sons, Bring Me The Horizon and Bon Iver.
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