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All Points West Puts NYC on Music Fest Map
The New Pornographers (Photo: Marina Chavez)
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All Points West has every chance of becoming a major annual affair in the ever-expanding world of multi-day music festivals. While Europe and the UK have been counting on their yearly summer festivals for decades now (Glastonbury, Roskilde, etc.), ours have been fairly spotty up until recently. Anybody remember the US festivals? Day on the Green? The touring version of Lollapalooza? Woodstock ’94? Well, with California’s desert festival Coachella spearheading the revival—plus Tennessee’s Bonnaroo and Chicago’s Pitchfork Festival—US audiences are finally getting theirs. Already being referred to as “Coachella East” thanks to Goldenvoice promoting both, APW promises to give New York City a splashy entrance into the festival circuit with the looming presence of Radiohead.
The spectacular views from Liberty State Park won’t hinder the excitement, but bringing Radiohead in to close two of the three nights is the real coup here. The last time a major concert was held at this “venue” it was August of 2001, when the Twin Towers dominated the visual backdrop and Radiohead was proving to a New York crowd that Kid A and Amnesiac could more than translate in a live setting. Now they are back with In Rainbows and a couple of dozen support acts. Apologies to Kings of Leon, The New Pornographers, Animal Collective, Cat Power, Trey Anastasio and Girl Talk, but make no mistake about it: All Points West is all about Radiohead. Any time the most consistently exhilarating live band comes through New York City it is an event worth noting. With a combination of experimental electronics, roaring guitars, infectious rhythms and the greatest touring rock vocalist on earth, Thom Yorke, out front, All Points West has made a very wise decision out of the gates. Because no matter how hit and miss a festival can be, the whole thing is often remembered by the impact of its headlining sets, and nobody has been wowing crowds more consistently in the last ten years than the band from Oxford that gave their last album away for free.
That said, if anything is capable of upstaging Radiohead it is the jaw-dropping location for this show itself. Liberty State Park is a ferry ride away from Lower Manhattan and sprawls out over several acres of grass-covered landfill with views that will impress even jaded New Yorkers. The Statue of Liberty rises up out of the water behind the stage. You can see the band with the Manhattan skyline glittering in the background as boats and helicopters move through the area with the Brooklyn Bridge plainly visible to the east. Throw in the Eliasson waterfalls as a bonus this year, and I think you get the picture.