Loyle Carner, All Points East 2024 • Festivals • DIY Magazine

Now entering its sixth year, it’s difficult to recall a time where All Points East wasn’t a staple on the London festival calendar. Helping wind down the curtain on festival season over the course of six all-day bonanzas, it’s morphed into a springboard for first-time headliners to take their place alongside more seasoned names.

From Bring Me The Horizon’s 2019 showstopper to HAIM’s indie-pop masterclass last year, now this year marks Loyle Carner’s turn to make the step up. Still reeling from the success of 2022’s ‘hugo’, this evening, the local lad is hosting 40,000 revellers in East London to play his biggest headline show to date.

Ascending from cult hero to international rap megastar, Loyle’s (born Ben Coyle-Larner) journey to this point is hard-won. Personified by his intimate, potent vocal delivery, he’s risen to the forefront of his generation – whilst firmly carving out his own path – operating in a separate lane to Stormzy’s powerful grime or Little Simz’s grand, slick hip-hop. We’re now in the presence of one of UK rap’s modern-day titans, something Loyle is still processing himself. He’s almost in disbelief that he’s playing after Nas, as he admits on stage: “We just supported Nas!”

Earlier in the day, Lola Young brings the East Stage crowd – who have gathered in sizeable numbers – to life for the first time, under the scorching August sunshine. Darting around the stage and injecting her bubbly personality into the occasion, she handles both artful pop (‘Messy’) and indie headbangers (‘Wish You Were Dead’) with ease, clearly ready to graduate to festival main stages en masse.

“Let’s kill that intro, we don’t have time," announces Lianne La Havas upon entering the West Stage. Her music is hardly underpinned by such urgency, dragging out the luscious soul tones of ‘Seven Times.’ Letting her otherworldly voice do the talking, the mildly irritating crowd chatter is significantly hushed by the latter stages of her set, as the quick hop back to the East Stage beckons for Glass Beams. The masked, partly anonymous Aussie trio are scintillating, mixing psychedelic rock with the sitar; an ode to founder Rajan Silva’s Indian heritage. The mystery might prevail, but the intrigue around Glass Beams will only grow – this is instrumental fusion at its finest.

Yo-yoing back towards the West Stage, the anticipation for Ezra Collective is unprecedented. Dressed head to toe in North Face gear, last year’s Mercury Prize winners bounce off the adoring hometown crowd from the get-go: "dance circles" (not mosh pits) open up, strangers are hugging each other, while Femi Koleoso invites the audience to embrace "authentic joy" in whatever form that may take. “I’ve never been as proud to be a Londoner as in the past month. We were an example to the rest of the country," he declares, referencing the recent riots and staring out into the very manifestation of this exact unity that the Collective embody. By the end, the band and crowd are one moving part – and ‘Victory Dance’ has never felt more appropriate.

Playful jazz to ambient flute is quite the switch-up, as André 3000 – one half of US legends Outkast – brings his recent improvised escapade ‘New Blue Sun’ to a darkened West Stage. Plenty of misinformed, oblivious punters who hope he’ll whip out ‘Hey Ya!’ and ‘Ms. Jackson’ walk away bitterly disappointed, unaware of the reason he’s touring. “I was looking forward to that so much!” grumbles one individual, storming off from the relatively thin crowd. On such a vast stage, the flute does feel inaudibly quiet at times, but it’s refreshing to witness André, who’s clearly making art for art’s sake, unashamedly in his element – even if this includes babbling about "lost luggage" in his own language.

Stepping on stage for his headline slot, Loyle Carner greets the mass exodus to the East Stage with ‘Hate’, arguably the defining single of this ‘hugo’ era that has helped propel him to the next level. From the outset, his stage presence is masterful and consistent, leaning into his impeccable sense of rhythm. ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Homerton’ take on another life, turned up a notch in both intensity and vigour. These are the songs that lifted him to this point, in a place ingrained in their roots: “I used to cycle through this park to take my son to nursery," he reveals.

Unsurprisingly, it's guests galore across the set, as Jordan Rakei and Tom Misch lend their hand to ‘Loose Ends’ and ‘Damselfly’ respectively. The highlight, however, comes from British-Guayenese poet John Agard delivering his ‘Half-Caste’ poem on a swashbuckling ‘Georgetown’ – a unique moment of showmanship from the 75-year-old, during which Loyle stands alongside him in awe.

Backed by a full band including two drummers, ‘Speed Of Plight’ transforms into an emotional behemoth of a rock song. “I’ve been doing this for ten years, and I still feel young as fuck," he declares. As fireworks cannon across Victoria Park during closer ‘Ottolenghi’, you can’t help but feel that Loyle Carner’s heyday is just kicking off – and long may it continue. Reading and Leeds, you better be watching.