The Gods must have been smiling on Hackney this weekend as All Points East Festival was blessed with heavenly weather all the way through Friday to Sunday. Following an epic, soul ascending set from Kaytranada on Friday night, Saturday cradled us back to life with smooth jazz and percussion. From Oreglo to Berlioz, Nubya Garcia and Lianne La Havas, jazz in its many forms was peppered throughout the day.
As the sun lowered in the sky, Mercury Prize winning jazz quintet Ezra Collective took to the West Stage, drawing a mammoth crowd in doing so. Last month, the band’s drummer Femi Koleoso criticised Wireless Festival for the performers’ low standard and lack of musicianship on social media. “To be on stage is such a blessing, such a deep privilege, and you’ve put zero effort into the set? I don’t even understand,’ he wrote on X, promising his followers that when Ezra Collective show up to All Points East (or anywhere) they’d give it their all.
Safe to say Koleoso kept his promise. Erupting, as the sun set, with infectious tracks such as Ajala, You Can’t Steal My Joy, Togetherness and São Paulo, the audience was given one task: dance. An Ezra Collective show is something that everyone should experience at least once in their life.
You are encouraged to look away from the stage and to the people surrounding you – to turn a field into the largest dance floor in the world, to two-step with strangers and sweat out any anxieties. Ezra Collective aren’t intereste.