twenty one pilots + PVRIS + Hot Milk + Nova Twins + Kid Kapichi + Dead Pony + The Meffs @ All Points East, Victoria Park, London 30th August 2026
Some festival days you find yourself planted in front of one stage for hours, perfectly happy to settle in and watch the day unfold. Then there are days when the line-up is so stacked with talent that staying in one place simply isn’t an option. Rather, you’re frantically checking and rechecking stage times, convincing yourself that there is absolutely no chance you’ll make it across Victoria Park in time for the next band.
Sunday at All Points East was very much the latter.
First up for me were The Meffs, who waste absolutely no time reminding everyone exactly what they’re about.
The Essex duo have never seemed particularly interested in subtlety, and quite frankly, nor should they be. Their sound is loud, confrontational and deliberately scrappy, with enough political bite to get you pumped for the day despite the early start, sweltering heat and dust inhalation. There’s something wonderfully boisterous about The Meffs, who veer away from a polished performance in the conventional festival sense and instead project an authentic Brit-punk spirit into the crowd.
The setlist is a near-perfect snapshot of what makes The Meffs work. Opening with Business, the 2026 single and title track of their upcoming album, they set the tone for what’s to come with its unapologetically gritty punk attitude. Their following tracks, Broken Britain, Broken Brains and God Complex, establish a distinct political thread running through the set. Lily Hopkins and Lewis Copsey feed into one another, delivering their frustrations with enough volume and attitude to make the set a collective cathartic release.
Fight and So Modern (Keep Up) retain this momentum before the set takes a turn with Breathe, their cover of the The Prodigy classic. It’s arguably the most unexpected moment of the set, but also one of the most fitting. The Meffs carry the same abrasive energy, and hearing them tear through Breathe in the middle of their own material feels completely natural and is the perfect crowd-pleaser.
It’s refreshing to see a band that doesn’t need elaborate production or spectacle to command a crowd; The Meffs just turn up, play loud and do it well.
Dead Pony have been steadily building momentum over the past couple of years, and their All Points East set makes it very clear that momentum isn’t slowing down anytime soon. The Scottish four-piece arrive on stage to a packed tent, glowing with an infectious confidence. Frontwoman Anna Shields is a natural festival performer: charismatic, energetic and seemingly incapable of standing still for more than a few seconds.
Musically, Dead Pony sit comfortably between pop-punk and pop-rock, delivering the kind of huge, catchy choruses that seem almost purpose-built for a festival like All Points East. There’s plenty of bounce to their performance, but they aren’t afraid to bring some heavier moments into the mix either, giving their sound enough edge to keep things interesting and me two-stepping for a full 35 minutes (a moment of silence for my calf muscles, please).
The setlist is a strong showcase of where Dead Pony are right now, pulling from their most recent EP, Eat My Dust!, while giving some space to the material that has helped build their reputation over the past few years. They open with the title track of their newest release, Eat My Dust!, immediately setting the pace before moving into their older material, Everything Burns and RAINBOWS.
The latter half of the set moves through Lost Inside of Me, IGNORE THIS and the song that made me fall in love with the band two years ago, MANA. There’s a particularly infectious quality to Dead Pony’s live sound, with the band managing to retain the polish of their recorded material while bringing considerably more energy to it on stage, with a heavier grit that highlights them as an emerging band to keep an eye on.
What really stands out, though, is just how much of a crowd they manage to pull. People continue drifting towards the stage throughout the set, and by the time they reach their final songs, the audience has grown considerably. It’s exciting seeing this happen in real time; Dead Pony have the songs, the personality and the live presence to make the jump to bigger stages feel inevitable.
After a quick hydration break and a light jog kicking up dust, I return to the main stage to catch Hot Milk, and at this point it feels almost unnecessary to explain why this band works so well at festivals. They are, quite frankly, a British alternative music staple.
Every time I see Hot Milk, they seem to have somehow become even more comfortable commanding a stage. There’s a ridiculous amount of energy coming from them, and none of it feels forced. This is a band that understands exactly what a festival audience wants: big choruses, movement, interaction and absolutely no opportunity to stand still.
Playing the main stage, Hot Milk have a much larger space to fill than the bands before them, but they have no problem doing so. The stage belongs to them almost immediately. The setlist is a strong representation of everything Hot Milk have become known for, opening with HORROR SHOW before launching into their newer material with 90 Seconds to Midnight, and it’s evident that there’s very little point in easing the crowd into the performance.
It’s unfathomable how much movement Han Mee and Jim Shaw manage to squeeze out of both themselves and the crowd, with hits such as Glass Spiders and PARTY ON MY DEATHBED closing out their set.
Kid Kapichi take the stage with a filthy, bass-heavy confidence unlike the other acts I had seen that day. The Hastings-based band have carved out a sound somewhere between punk and garage rock, and live, that is turned up several notches.
Their setlist is built for exactly that. Artillery kicks things off before Let’s Get to Work, Stainless Steel and Rob the Supermarket keep the momentum going, with Leader of the Free World and If You’ve Got Legs bringing some of the biggest moments of the set. There’s no messing around with the pacing either; each song seems to hit harder than the last, eventually building towards an extended Get Down before Smash the Gaff sends the crowd off properly fired up.
What Kid Kapichi do particularly well is make their songs dancefloor fillers without ever losing the grit of their punk-rock roots. There’s an undeniable groove running underneath all the noise, and you can see it spreading through the crowd as more and more people start throwing themselves around. It’s loud, sweaty and exceedingly fun; exactly what you want late in a festival day.
PVRIS have never been a band I’ve struggled to enjoy live, but this might genuinely be the best I’ve seen them perform. Lynn Gunn’s vocals are absolutely insane, sounding just as powerful live as they do on record, if not more so. Opening with Dead Weight before moving through Snakes, Ghosts and Oil & Water, the set wastes no time getting into its stride, with Gunn effortlessly moving between the darker, heavier moments and the more melodic side of PVRIS.
There’s a really good balance to the setlist, too. Gimme a Minute, GOOD ENEMY and ANIMAL keep things moving at a pace that makes their set fly by. It’s only a 45-minute festival slot, but it doesn’t feel like one. There’s barely any time wasted between songs, the crowd is completely locked in, and Gunn sounds phenomenal from beginning to end.
What makes it work is how effortlessly Gunn moves between all of those sounds. She can be delicate one second and absolutely belt the next, and vocally there’s very little that feels like she’s having to work for it. I’ve seen PVRIS a handful of times, and I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever heard them sound this good. There’s also a confidence to her stage presence that has clearly developed over the years; she knows exactly when to let a song breathe and when to throw herself into it. Coming off PVRIS’ 2025 White Noise tenth-anniversary tour, there’s something particularly satisfying about seeing how far that sound has evolved while still retaining the darker edge that made those earlier records so good in the first place.
Nova Twins are, without question, one of the highlights of the day. Amy Love and Georgia South have always had a knack for making an enormous amount of noise between the two of them, but what makes them such a thrilling listen is how little interest they have in sticking to one lane. Punk, metal and grime all get thrown into the mix of their discography, rejecting any conformity within the nu-metal scene they’ve grown so rapidly in. Amy and Georgia are two of the most talented musicians in the British alternative scene right now, and watching them tear through their set, it’s difficult to argue otherwise.
The setlist is a pretty perfect introduction to what makes Nova Twins so exciting. There’s plenty of the heavy stuff you’d expect: huge riffs, relentless drumming and bass that rattles your ribs if you’re stood too close to the speakers. But they’re just as comfortable throwing rap elements into the mix, giving the set an extra edge and making it difficult to pin them down to any one genre.
After opening with Antagonist, they tear through Cleopatra, Taxi, N.O.V.A and Drip, wasting no time getting the crowd moving, with songs like Choose Your Fighter bringing some of their heaviest moments. There’s a real physicality to the way they perform, but what stands out most is how naturally they swap the limelight between them. One moment, Amy has the entire stage; the next, Georgia steps forward and commands the attention just as easily. It’s incredibly well executed, and there’s never really a moment where you’re not enthralled.
There was always going to be a lot riding on twenty one pilots’ headline set at All Points East. Closing out a ten-year story is no small task, particularly when that story has developed into an entire universe of lore, characters and theories that fans have been dissecting for years. Add in the fact that this was their only UK show of 2026 following the release of Breach in 2025, and expectations were understandably high.
Luckily, twenty one pilots have never been a band particularly interested in doing things low-key. Following a post from the band’s creative and content director Mark C. Eshleman (@reelbearmedia) earlier that month, it became evident in the weeks leading up to All Points East that twenty one pilots were filming this performance for a future release, and they pulled out all of the stops for it.
For a two-piece, the sheer scale of their live show is still somewhat ridiculous. Tyler Joseph spends most of the set tearing around the stage, climbing on the set and throwing himself into every song, while Josh Dun is behind the kit delivering drumming that makes the band sound considerably bigger than two people.
Some of the biggest moments of the night came from their most recent record, Breach, with the new material already sounding completely at home in a live setting. The standout was undoubtedly Robot Voices, a deeper cut from the record receiving its live debut with special guest Emi Grace. It is a bold choice for a first outing, but one that pays off, particularly as the crowd reaction makes it clear just how closely these fans have been following the rollout of the record for the past year.
For the longtime fans, though, it is the return to the band’s older rituals that really hits hardest. The Message Man ritual is brought back to the B-stage, incorporating a mash-up of some older fan favourites from their discography: Message Man, Pet Cheetah and Polarize. Reader, if you’re not familiar with the intricacies of twenty one pilots’ lore, you may be wondering why several thousand people adorned in red and yellow tape lost their minds at Tyler Joseph methodically dousing his hands and bass in black paint. But for those who have followed this band through the past decade, this was a monumental performance. Every gesture, visual callback and familiar ritual carries the weight of years of touring, albums and memories, and seeing them brought back on a stage this enormous feels genuinely significant. This is a band that has always rewarded its most devoted fans, and at All Points East, that devotion was paid back in full.
For all the production surrounding them, it’s still Tyler and Josh who make the show work. Tyler is an endlessly watchable frontman, throwing himself into the bigger moments while his vocals impressively switch from the rapid-fire delivery of the heavier tracks into the more melodic breathers.
Drag Path is another highlight, and its journey to the setlist has been anything but conventional. First appearing as a limited bonus track on Breach: Digital Remains following the album’s release, the track found an unexpected second life on TikTok before eventually earning an official single release. By the time it reaches the stage at All Points East, it already feels less like a deep cut and more like one of the album era’s fan favourites. To put the cherry on top of twenty one pilots’ impassioned performance of this single, the heavens open. After an otherwise dry evening, rain starts hammering down across Victoria Park, arriving with such impeccable timing that it borders on comedic, if the soundtrack to this pathetic fallacy wasn’t so devastating.
Another highlight is the return of Chlorine to the setlist. For fans keeping an eye on the band’s European festival appearances, its return is particularly significant. The song hasn’t appeared in their sets at the other European festivals this year, making its inclusion at All Points East feel like another little surprise reserved for this particular crowd.
twenty one pilots have always been particularly good at using covers to turn a huge festival crowd into one singalong, and All Points East gets several crowd-pleasers throughout the evening. The Beatles’ Let It Be appears during the live debut of Robot Voices, while Radiohead’s Creep makes an appearance during Drum Show and The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army gets one of the biggest reactions of the night.
It’s these moments that stop the show from becoming too insular. Because there is a lot here for the hardcore fan. There are callbacks to previous eras, lore references and moments that reward anyone who has followed the band closely. But twenty one pilots never allow that to alienate the people who don’t know every detail. The big songs are still enormous. Stressed Out remains an absolutely massive crowd-pleaser, while Ride gets another memorable moment when security guard Lucas joins Tyler Joseph onstage for the final chorus.
By the time Trees brings the set to a close, it’s hard not to feel like you’ve just watched something far bigger than a two-piece should be capable of. Tyler and Josh have spent the last two hours throwing absolutely everything at it, and there’s never a point where the energy feels stagnant. This was undoubtedly the perfect celebration for a band that has built an immense cult following worldwide. Ending the story was never going to be easy, but if this is how they’re choosing to close this chapter, they’ve certainly gone out swinging.
WORDS: ROSIE RIVERS PHOTOS: ETHNE LEVER
