All Points West Day 3 Recap & Photos

Two days dealing with disgusting sludge water mud, and one day left. However, god didn’t make the final day any easier. It rained even more early sunday afternoon making the field even worse. This delayed the gates from opening, canceling performances from bands like The Gaslight Anthem.

It took forever to get into the festival. By the time that I got in there, Silversun Pickups were wrapping up their set with “Lazy Eye”. Me and my girlfriend caught a few songs from We Are Scientists who were energetic and fun as usual. They played one new song, which I recorded and uploaded to youtube. We left after 3 songs in order to catch the magnificent Elbow. The Guy Garvey led band was absolutely mint live, playing a beautiful set of songs. Guy really got into the performance, doing the most crowd interaction at All Points West (aside from Coldplay of course). “Grounds For Divorce” and “One Day Like This” were nailed to highlight status. I was very, very, impressed with them live.

Next was Echo & The Bunnymen. Their songs are great, but they lacked any energy. Ian McCulloch seemed as though he didn’t want to be there, complaining about every little thing. He even publicly acted like a dick to his sound/stage guy. Songs like “Lips Like Sugar” and “The Killing Moon” were pretty cool to see and all, but I only wish it was when they were still into their performances.

Finally, it was time for Coldplay. I ain’t one of those bloggers who is a hipster. I fucking love Coldplay. They have 3 great albums and one pretty good one (X&Y, it isn’t as bad as you all say!). Their live performances are second to pretty much no one (except acts like U2 & Radiohead – who did it first anyway). They came out with a bang, and rocked the house. The crowd was singing along to every single lyric, and you couldn’t help but absorb all of their energy. Martin and company were excited to be there, and that makes all of the difference.

They played all of their hits, while also throwing in dedication covers to the Beastie Boys (Fight For Your Right To Party) and Michael Jackson (Billie Jean). The show had big yellow balloons during “yellow” and paper butterflies during “Lovers In Japan”. They played in the crowd, but most importantly to the crowd. We sang our hearts out to their old classics (“Clocks”) and new ones (“Viva La Vida”. They had all the theatricals of a rock show, and rocked the house.

I could not have asked for a better ending to All Points West. Coldplay not only played the best set of the entire night, but they also played one of the best shows that I have ever seen. Chris Martin sadly said we wouldn’t see them for a few years. Hopefully it just means that they are working hard on some more tight songs that we can rock out too sometime soon in MSG!

The festival was tons of fun, mud aside. I will never forget the weekend of Jul 31st-Aug 2nd anytime soon. Let the countdown begin until next year, and keep an eye out for the Beastie Boys re-taking their headlining spot!

Here are the best photos I took from night #3:

Coldplay: