Thom Yorke suggests the water taxis.

A cellphone ad waiting to happen

All Points Bulletin

Radiohead (and others) unceremoniously (and soberly) kick off
inaugural New Jersey festival BY STEVE KANDELL

Dog days: Cat Power’s Chan Marshall and hype man

The New York area isn’t woefully late to the increasingly crowded summer-festival party; it only seems that way. Field Day (featuring Radiohead and Beastie Boys) tried to re-create the newly successful Coachella experience in ²⁰⁰³, but had to move the entire operation from a Long Island pasture to a rain-drenched, ill-suited Giants Stadium, in New Jersey, because promoters failed to obtain the necessary local permits. The organizers of ²⁰⁰⁵’s Across the Narrows dared Interpol fans to come to Staten Island—and lost. Further dooming these would-be franchises was the fact that they were tethered to character-free stadiums, while Coachella’s and Bonnaroo’s appeal lay in their remote, bucolic destinations.

It was Lollapalooza’s reinvention as a viable multiday event, right in the middle of downtown Chicago with the cityscape playing the role of, say, the Sasquatch! Music Festival’s dramatic Washington gorge, that clearly laid the template for this year’s inaugural three-day All Points West. The expansive Liberty State Park in Jersey City, picturesquely located a quick boat ride away from downtown Manhattan, fit the bill nicely; the biggest concession to the inevitable logistical red tape were the draconian beer-buying rules, which limited each attendee to five a day, to be consumed only in cordoned-off pens with no clear sight lines to any of the three stages. Strolling the grounds, you heard “Prohibition” grumbled a lot, and by midweekend, this issue had replaced endless lines as the festival’s most

common gripe. During Kings of Leon’s Saturday set, frontman Caleb Followill empathized: “Heard they’re not letting you guys get drunk”—then he hoisted his own beer as a good-natured taunt. Perhaps the dudes charged with hosing down vomit on the ferries had a powerful lobby.

But as the burgeoning, perhaps plateauing, American festival circuit becomes a machine unto itself, there isn’t much connection left between most of these happenings and their locations other than the geography. There was nothing about the All Points West lineup or aesthetic that attempted to reflect the culture and the diversity and the history inherent in its host city— stunningly, of the ⁴⁶ acts appearing the entire weekend, only two were hip-hop-oriented (Philadelphians the Roots and Somalian rapper K’naan on Saturday), and only a small handful call New York home. Compare that with the homegrown Chicago talent on display at Lollapalooza. All Points’ roster could have played a parking lot in New Hampshire or under the St. Louis arch, and nothing would’ve seemed out of place.

Curiously, as All Points West seeks to establish its brand and avoid the one-and-done fates of its New York predecessors, the event, at least in the weeks leading up to it, had the tenor of a two-night Radiohead engagement with a relatively inspired undercard. Pinning the festival’s hopes to the band’s only area In Rainbows shows (with the now-obligatory Jack Johnson headline set on Sunday night) was a calcu-

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