"I'll see you when you're older" - Equilibrium restored as The Maccabees return to their city

"I'll see you when you're older, when we're older", sang Orlando Weeks and 40,000 people in Victoria Park on Sunday (August 24), as The Maccabees headlined All Points East.

The irony isn't lost - some eight years later, the beloved band are back in their city for a memorable, epic and cathartic finale to their second coming.

It's London, and it's 2025 - we left our heroes in 2017. Side projects, families, art, record labels, podcasts - the collective creativity of Weeks, Felix White, Hugo White, Rupert Jarvis and Sam Doyle outside of the band made this reunion ever the more unlikely in the minds of fans.

But the prospect of their largest ever show brought them back, and we were treated to a 90-minute showcase of their outstanding chronology - from race to the end indie (X-Ray, Latchmere) to their ponderous yet sharp later music (Feel to Follow, Kamakura).

Devoted fans were treated to deeper cuts (William Powers, Silence), while the band's big set pieces (Something Like Happiness, Grew Up At Midnight) were made even more epic by the All Points East stage visuals - with timelapses of Elephant and Castle and the cover of Given to the Wild immersing the crowd.

The day festival celebrated indie in its many forms, from Black Country, New Road, to CMAT, to Sorry. The Maccabees' contemporaries from the first time round joined the party too: indie legends Bombay Bicycle Club, The Cribs and The Futureheads joined to lead up to the set. Jamie T even came out during the headline slot for Marks To Prove It, and then Sticks N' Stones.

The best concepts, ideas and developments happen when you take a break. Whether The Maccabees decide to play again immediately, in another eight years, or never again is completely up to them - but their show at All Points East offered renewal. It feels as if a kind of equilibrium has been restored.