All Points East 2025: The Maccabees, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Futureheads & The Cribs

First up are long-time absentees Youth Lagoon. After a period away, Trevor Powers is back making music under his new moniker and eases us into the start of the day with his gently cracking vocal tones. On a completely opposite note comes The Murder Capital. While Youth Lagoon washed over us, they hit us squarely in the face with intense post-punk. They don’t come quietly in any sense, speaking out in support of compatriots The Mary Wallopers (after they had their sound cut short at Victorious Festival for displaying a Palestinian flag) and leading the crowd in repeated chants of “Free Free Palestine”.

Keeping that energy up on the East Stage could be a tough task, but not if you’re The Cribs. There’s no better opener for Wakefield’s finest, playing in fashionable East London, than hipster hating anthem ‘Hey Scenesters!’. In 2006, if a crowd couldn’t sing your guitar riff back to you, you weren’t worth a thing. So, the rowdiest crowd I’ve seen at an APE duly shows them what they’re still worth to us during ‘I’m a Realist’ and ‘Men’s Needs’. Back on those pesky hipsters again, ‘Mirror Kissers’ is arguably the most raucous song of the set, releasing that final burst of energy and thrashed guitar before the classic closer of ‘Be Safe’. When this song was written, the Jarman brothers never expected to play it live. When it sounds this powerful and cathartic, they can’t not.

For a festival so clearly focussed around indie nostalgia, you could probably have guessed that The Futureheads would overfill their small stage. It’s a bugbear of mine when promoters don’t realise that, in an afternoon slot, artists with one massive hit will fill a festival stage much more so than their typical tour venues. Gripes aside, the crowd were reminded that they’re good for much more than a cover. Tracks such as ‘Decent Days and Nights’, ‘Carnival Kids’ and ‘The Beginning of the Twist’ stand up well. With ‘Hounds of Love’ they hit upon gold, utilising the crowd and their own famous harmonising skills for a cover that has no right to be as good as it is.

The current iteration of Bombay Bicycle Club has been fleshed out from the 4 piece band they started out as to include plenty of bells and whistles. They get lumped unfairly into the indie landfill, with their daft name and ridiculously young breakout onto the scene, but they’ve always been a lot more talented than most of their contemporaries. There’s such variation in their sounds and songwriting that even the uninitiated stay locked in. It’s a huge positive for a sometimes unfamiliar festival crowd and ensures the vibes are felt all the way to the back. After her own set on the other stage, CMAT joins for their recent collaboration ‘Rural Radio Predicts the Rapture’, setting up the big finale of ‘Carry Me’ and brassed-up ‘Always Like This’. It might not be the biggest carnival atmosphere in London this weekend, but for a few minutes it feels like it.

Festival headliners The Maccabees did that rare thing of amicably breaking up on what felt like an upward curve. It did always feel likely that they’d be back, but I have to admit, I hadn’t realised quite how much they’d been missed. Opener ‘Latchmere’ makes that very obvious, as do ‘Precious Time’ and ‘No Kind Words’, but the rapturous receptions for lesser known songs show it even more clearly.

With only a couple of the big energetic bangers left to come, how do you take the ecstatic atmosphere up one extra notch? The perfect answer, I now realise, is to invite Jamie T to join them for ‘Sticks ‘n’ Stones’. Heads lost everywhere. As surprise guests go, it’s one of the best-received I’ve ever seen and Jamie sounds better than ever. APE, if you’re thinking of 2026 headliners, I think one is pretty firmly in the shop window now.

The encore is opened with the almost sickly-sweet ballad ‘Toothpaste Kisses’, an innocent reminder of the unsleazy side to Indie, before ferocious closer ‘Pelican’ blows the dust away one last time.