On the night of August 27th, the Village Underground’s stage was not big, but they squeezed in a surprise performance that was a warm-up for All Points East the next day. Rex Orange County, whose real name is Alexander James O'Connor, started by playing a simple guitar riff, then brass and strings came in one after another, and finally even the flute was involved - this is a new song that has never been released before, called "Elvis".
"I'm not too calm I shake my legs like I'm Elvis / I wanna be your only friend cause I'm selfish," he sings. When the song reached the last verse, Turnstile lead singer Brendan Yates was invited to the stage to sing, which became the biggest surprise of the whole night.
This basement-scale performance was actually a warm-up for Tyler, The Creator's London show at All Points East the next day. On August 28th, Tyler's lineup was so luxurious that he almost brought an entire list of hip-hop and hardcore to the stage: Turnstile, Mariah The Scientist, Clipse, Sexyy Red, Ravyn Lenae, Fakemink, and Vince Staples. Rex Orange County first completed his solo performance during the day, and then appeared in Tyler's headline set at night. The two sang "Boredom" - a collaborative track from Tyler's 2017 album "Flower Boy", which was reawakened at the outdoor music festival.
The next day, the second night of August 29, the list that Tyler found changed to a new group of people: Daniel Caesar, Baby Keem, Dijon, Ghostface Killah, Syd, Faye Webster, Danny Brown and Jim Legxacy took turns to appear. Turnstile also made a reservation for their own performance. They asked Faye Webster to sing "I Care". This arrangement coincided with the band's remastered album "Never Enough: Versions" released at the same time, in which Webster included her reinterpreted version of "I Care".
Pulling the timeline back a little earlier, Rex Orange County released an introspective new single "Indecision" earlier this month, featuring Daniel Caesar for collaboration. From the basement of Village Underground to the outdoor stage of All Points East, his exposure in the past few days has almost connected the most scattered but also the most personal threads in the entire festival lineup.
