Visions Festival

It’s always going to be a bit special, isn’t it? Visions Festival hits East London with one of this summer’s most buzzworthy line-ups,taking over London Fields Brewhouse and its surrounding spaces of Netil House and Oval Space. The end result? A thoroughly enjoyable day with some of the best live performances of the year so far!

Kicking off proceedings are Brighton’s Gaps, whose airy folk-inspired electronica is a wonderful daydream-inducing affair. Despite being plagued with a few technical issues, the duo manage to conjure something suitably intimate for the low-lit stage at the Brewhouse, which is all brought together by the charming charisma of vocalist Rachel.

Next up in the Brewhouse is Australian Kirin J. Callinan, who puts on the most downright insane performance of the day. Honestly, the way Callinan works a guitar is utter wizardry: dozens of pedals are perfectly arranged on stage for his set, and the soundscapes he casts upon his listeners has everyone completely captivated by his technical prowess. With one hell of a pair of lungs on him too, it’s no surprise he opened for fellow oddball Ariel Pink on his US tour this June.

Newcomer Jackson Scott takes to the Brewhouse stage later on in the afternoon for his debut European show, and the venue fills out for the first time that day. Ramshackle, juvenile and audaciously confident, Jackson’s haunting and hazy guitar-strumming becomes a visceral and ferocious onslaught live. A slacker only in the most aesthetic sense of the word, Scott not only gives a thoroughly engaging performance but also shows us all that he isn’t just a lackadaisical teenager.

Bouncers snapping photos, a post-performance Jackson Scott crowdsurfing in ways no man ever has before. Fist-pumping arms as far as the eye can see. It can only be a Cloud Nothings show, can’t it? The Ohio three-piece fronted by infamous bedroom-dweller Dylan Baldi turn Netil House into a sauna, tearing through a set sprinkled with some new numbers that sound like the best material Cloud Nothings have produced yet. It’s confidently executed, as you’d expect, and incredibly sweaty as a result.

Then, down at Oval Space, !!! zip through over an hour’s worth of material ranging from the poppy delights of their new record ‘Thr!!!er’, to some forward-thinking EDM interludes that have the whole building shaking in time to the beat. It’s rare to see them in a warehouse environment that suits them so well - those who are lucky enough to witness it will tell you they seemed right at home.