Delightful: Phoenix, at All Points East, reviewed

A few years ago, my nephew informed me that he and his friend were planning to come up to London for the weekend for the Wireless Festival. Did they need somewhere to stay? He looked at me like I was a mad old man. No, of course not. They were going to camp. In Finsbury Park. Because when you go to festivals, you camp. Thankfully, he didn’t turn up on the Victoria Line with his tent and then wonder why no one else was similarly equipped.

Phoenix have the air of being as much a lifestyle choice as a pop group

Inner-city festivals such as Wireless and All Points East are almost always a series of single-day events. APE is a ruthlessly programmed festival. Rather than try to be all things to all people, each day is targeted at some section of the festival-going population. This year, there were two days for people who wanted to dance (headlined by Kaytranada and Loyle Carner) on the first weekend, then over the bank holiday weekend, one for teenage girls and young women (Mitski), one for maturing hipsters (LCD Soundsystem) and one almost exclusively for people who listen to BBC Radio 6 Music (Death Cab For Cutie and the Postal Service).

I went for sections of the latter two. What interested me about the hipster day was Jai Paul, who was headlining the second stage. You may very well not have heard of Paul, for in a career lasting more than a decade he has released four singles, recorded one album – which was leaked and then not officially released for several years – and only played live a handful of times. Nevertheless, there is a chunk of the music press that regards him as something of a demigod, a veritable prince of the north-west London suburbs. His crowd, it must be said, was modest, and not notably enthused. It reminded me of going to see another R&B singer, Kelela – also the subject of huge press buzz – in a tiny club that was barely a quarter full. Sometimes the public just aren’t that enthusiastic about the pop stars that excitable writers want to foist on the world. Usually they’re right. I think they’re right about Jai Paul, who was dreary.

The next night, a hipster group of a previous generation filled the same slot. Phoenix, unlike Jai Paul, aren’t shy: they were among France’s chosen musical representatives at the Olympic closing ceremony last month. Also unlike Jai Paul, they attracted a big crowd who wanted to dance (possibly because the headliners weren’t exactly a party). More to the point, they were delightful. Singer Thomas Mars still looks like he’s stepped off a yacht at St Tropez, and the band are like the children of Roxy Music: it’s not that they sound like Ferry et al, more that they have the air of being as much a lifestyle choice as a pop group. And pop is what they are – a giddy confection of synthpop, soft rock and new wave that’s as toothsome as candy floss.

They’re also blessed with a handful of surprisingly great songs that rocked a little harder live than on record, with guitars louder and drummer Thomas Hedlund absolutely powering the whole set (he’s the secret star here; they’d be a lesser group without him). ‘Lisztomania’ was a wonderful hybrid of the Strokes, Chic and Supertramp; ‘1901’ had the sharp, crispness of synthpop but the bursting, organic joy of rock.

It was helped, too, by the brilliantly simple staging. With LED frames surrounding the screens on stage, the performance area might suddenly become pink or create a whole new world.

It was proof, too, that while hipster causes célèbres can often disappoint, there are those who are in it for the long haul. I’m not sure that something so apparently arch was designed to last – it seemed as lightweight as gossamer when Phoenix emerged – but I’m glad it did.