With All Points East still very much in its infancy in what many will agree has become a very overcrowded festival calendar, they've been doing a great job establishing their own unique vibe and character. That's not just us saying that by the way, they've just won the Festival Of The Year Award at the Music Week Awards! Presenting relatively eclectic line-ups across two weekends at Victoria Park last year, APE returns in 2019 with another six strong looking dates, but the most impressive out of them all lands on Friday 31st May when Bring Me The Horizon take to the stage for their first ever headline slot at a UK Festival. Whilst this is an excellent and confident booking in its own right - it's how the rest of the bill below them has been constructed which leans it quite easily in to the territory of potentially the most exciting day at any festival in the UK this year.
Bring Me The Horizon are an interesting bunch. If you were to go back to 2006 and check out their debut record Count Your Blessings and compare it against their most recent output amo, you'd be completely forgiven for thinking you were listening to two completely different bands. In 2006 Bring Me The Horizon were part of a huge swathe of Deathcore bands which entered the heavy music scene to, it's probably fair to say, very mixed reaction. As the BMTH name started to grow and they unleashed Suicide Season in 2008 they were certainly building up a legion of fans but it wouldn't be inappropriate to suggest that they became the brunt of many jokes made across the heavy music scene from many who were suspicious of these young, cookie monster growling bands that were popping up all over the place. Insults, jokes, bottles, aggression all came towards Bring Me The Horizon in swathes and standing front and centre, Oli Sykes would stand arms wide taking on all comers. Perhaps a perfect example of this came at Reading Festival in 2008, with Slipknot forced to pull out mere days before the festival, the gap left on the Sunday meant all bands underneath Metallica and sub-headliners Tenacious D were bumped up and at the final hour Bring Me The Horizon were added on to the bill to open up the Main Stage. As you can probably gather at this point, there was a backlash, but if you were standing in that field that day watching BMTH you will have witnessed a frankly unforgettable onslaught - and it was ALL coming from the stage. And here we are now, over ten years later talking about the band leading up a frankly gigantic line-up and headlining their first ever UK Festival. With the release of the set-times it's been unveiled that BMTH will have a two hours set (certainly longer than their usual show) in which they've promised a set-list spanning from across their discography so it's fair to expect some rare gems.
It's important to touch on Bring Me The Horizon's heavier past in this respect - reason being, when you look at their All Points East line-up (a line-up they've played a huge hand in curating) it is very clear that it isn't something they've wholly rejected in favour for their new sound and dynamic - a relatively frequent criticism of them as of late. First things first, they've got Architects headlining the second stage (don't worry, they won't clash!), a band who are on a run of form perhaps only paralleled by their Metalcore counterparts Parkway Drive at the moment. In a matter of two or three years they've gone from headlining Brixton Academy to Alexandra Palace to Wembley Arena - unfuckwithable on every occasion. Below them we've got another band on a huge wave of momentum in While She Sleeps. Sheffield pals of Bring Me The Horizon, the band's recent release SO WHAT? has been doing very well and has proven to be a natural progression from previous record You Are We which of course featured BMTH's Oli Sykes on Silence Speaks - pretty safe to assume he'll be popping up during their set? Alongside these there are also the vastly impressive Employed To Serve. Their release The Warmth Of A Dying Sun was our album of the year in 2017 and with what we've heard so far from Eternal Forward Motion it's extremely likely that they're going to be featuring very prominently in our 2019 lists as well. Never mind just our list actually, 2019 is theirs for the taking.
So as well as some of the most exciting bands in heavy music at the moment, what else does the Bring Me The Horizon day at All Points East bring? Well, easily one of the most talked about acts on the circuit at the moment are Idles. There have been the odd few cynical takes on their political rhetoric but one thing is for sure, they're making a proper impact and have built a fierce reputation live. Their inclusion on this line-up almost feels like it has gone under the radar but they're poised to steal the day entirely and as a Punk fuelled band which have strong-armed their way in to the mainstream they're just an excellent addition to this crop of bands. Without any shadow of a doubt though, the top act to pick out from "the best of the rest" are the hugely influential and brilliant Run The Jewels. The American hip-hop duo consistently deliver INTENSE live performances and with Run The Jewels 4 confirmed to be in the works at the moment we're incredibly excited at the potential of hearing some new material as well. Their inclusion on this line-up isn't just great because of how great a musical act they are but it's a tremendous connecting link for Bring Me The Horizon's newer crop of fans and their older legions. Bring Me The Horizon have played an important role in opening up new sounds in their make-up in recent years and subsequently they've full on become gateway band for young music fans looking to get in to Heavy Music a la Linkin Park towards the start of the century. By bringing in the likes of Run The Jewels on this line-up you are absolutely going to have heavier fans discovering the genius of their Hip-Hop sound and on the flipside you'll have people discovering and enjoying the likes of While She Sleeps. It's a melting pot which has followed a very precise formula and has subsequently caused the curation of a line-up which is absolutely bursting at the seams with acts to watch and not much filler at all.
All this and we've probably only touched on under half of the overall line-up for Bring Me The Horizon at All Points East this year. See below set-times across all stages on the day:
East Stage
21:00-23:00 - Bring Me The Horizon
19:30-20:15 - Run The Jewels
18:05-18:50 - Nothing But Thieves
16:55-17:30 - IDLES
15:50-16:20 - Alice Glass
14:50-15:20 - Scarlxrd
North Stage
20:00-20:55 - Architects
18:50-19:30 - While She Sleeps
17:30-18:05 - Sleeping With Sirens
16:30-17:00 - Yonaka
15:20-15:50 - Employed To Serve
14:20-14:50 - Lotus Eater
13:30-14:00 - Happy Alone
Firestone Stage
18:20-18:50 - Vukovi
17:00-17:20 - Black Futures
15:55-16:15 - Pengshui
14:55-15:15 - Tillie
Jagerhaus
20:30-21:10 - Health
19:30-20:00 - Crows
18:30-19:00 - Lady Bird
17:30-18:00 - Girli
16:30-17:00 - Squid
15:30-16:00 - Heavy Lungs
14:30-15:00 - 404
14:00-14:30 - DIY DJs
Tickets for all dates at All Points East, including the above, are available via this link - https://www.allpointseastfestival.com/tickets/