Photograph by Alex Reside for RollingStone.com

It’s terribly fashionable to criticize Coldplay but unless trenchfoot is the latest hipster accessory, there wasn’t anyone being fashionable on the third day of All Points West. With the rain and sludge double-whammy demoralizing the thousands of fans in Liberty State Park, the sound of the London-four piece spinning out a decade’s worth of stadium anthems and a few other party favors was just the unpretentious tonic that Sunday night needed.

(Check out the best of All Points West, in photos.)

Dressed in their now familiar (but no-less conspicuous) French revolutionary clobber and backlit to within an inch of their lives, Chris Martin and Co. reached high gear almost instantly, dispatching “Clocks,” “In My Place” and “Yellow” before they’d even said a proper hello. “As four British people who grew up in the mud and the rain, we salute you for coming out to what can only be described as a mud Jacuzzi,” gushed Chris Martin before spinning and spiraling around the stage during “42″ like a little boy who’s just discovered how fun it is to make yourself dizzy. (more…)

Photo: Bedder/Getty
Nevermind the slew of commemorative cash-ins and merchandise that have emerged in time for the 40th anniversary of Woodstock; Sunday at All Points West almost turned out to be a living, breathing, squelching, real-life re-enactment of the epochal 1969 mud-bath.

(Check out the best of All Points West, in photos.)

Early arrivals to day three of the festival were first denied entry and subsequently herded into the nearby ferry terminal like poncho-wearing refugees as torrential rain battered the site, which was still struggling to soak up Friday’s downpour. Rumours quickly circulated about a possible cancellation before the sky began clearing at around 2 p.m. Despite that, most fans arrived onsite well after 4 to find that main stage (Blue Comet) openers Steel Train and the Gaslight Anthem had been cut and the park now looked like little more than a green and brown swamp with concession stands floating on top. The mass, sludge-based anointing began en masse — and most of it was involuntary. (more…)

Photograph by Alex Reside for RollingStone.com

Moody, intricate and introspective metal isn’t necessarily the natural choice for a festival headlining slot, but over the course of their bleak and riveting 90-minute set New Jersey’s All Points West Festival Saturday night, Tool proved that sometimes mystery is more compelling than stridency.

(Check out photos from All Points West: Tool, Jay-Z and more.)

On a bill loaded with indie rock, Tool seemed initially distinguished by their popularity. They were the only band on Saturday’s bill to have a platinum record, and the only performers to have won Grammys, and the only ones with enough starpower to sell out arenas on their own. And yet despite their high profile, Tool hardly behave like a mainstream band. Saturday’s set was an exercise in atmosphere — a dark, riveting performance that minimized the members of band while foregrounding their stranger sensibilities. (more…)

Photo: Busacca/Getty

Is there any sight that warms the heart of a rock band more than a sea of upraised middle fingers? That’s the scene that greeted recently reformed British shoegaze pioneers My Bloody Valentine midway through their Saturday night set at All Points West Festival in New Jersey’s Liberty State Park.

(Photos live from All Points West: My Bloody Valentine, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and more.)

Though the gesture was mainly the response of impatient Tool fans reacting viscerally to My Bloody Valentine’s measured, enveloping music, it also handily summed up the mood of the day, one where a lion’s share of the music could be characterized by either ticked-off or tempestuous. If All Points West was a trilogy, Saturday would be its darker second installment. (more…)

Photograph by Alex Reside of RollingStone.com

Jay-Z’s first American festival show at Friday’s All Points West festival was a hard-rocking, non-stop blizzard of hits, punctuated by tributes to the Beastie Boys and Michael Jackson, and included some exclusive tastes of his upcoming album The Blueprint 3.

(Get a look at Jay-Z’s epic All Points West set and more from the New Jersey festival, in photos.)

After a ghostly clock floating above the stage counted down a solid 10 minutes, Jay-Z burst out of the wings, opening with a cover the Beastie Boys’ 1986 mook-rap classic “No Sleep Till Brooklyn.” The Beasties, who had previously held Jay-Z’s headliner spot, canceled after rapper Adam “MCA” Yauch was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his salivary gland. To pay tribute to an act Jay-Z says made it possible for him to be on that stage, his 10-member band tore through the Rick Rubin arrangement with vicious aplomb; and Jay didn’t even rework the line, “They call me Adam Yauch, but I’m MCA.” (more…)

Photograph by Alex Reside of RollingStone.com

“I know it’s not easy to dance when you’re holding an umbrella,” said Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, essentially summing up Friday’s rainy, muddy, bleak, All Points West Festival in New Jersey’s Liberty State Park. After the rain turned the grassy festival expanse into a bog pockmarked with tiny lagoons, gooey mud obstacles and the stench of liquefied goose shit, the goal of every band would simply be to try and boost the spirits of a shivering, soggy crowd.

(Check out photos from the ground in our All Points West gallery.)

The rain came down in bucketloads around four in the afternoon, distracting comedian Arj Barker from his set. “This is fucking ridiculous,” he said, before asking his water bottle, “You know anything about this, you son of a bitch?” Colorful New York indie-dance troupe Ra Ra Riot responded fast by bringing more energy than their audience, who was busy navigating all the new puddles that surrounded the stage. The band hopped around and played indie-rock versions of tent-revival rave-ups, complete with violin. Dry and perpetually happy, singer Wes Miles remained optimistic, trying his damndest to engage the crowd. “I guess it’s not as wet as it could be,” he said, clearly unprepared for the raspy heckler who shouted, “That’s what she said.” (more…)

Photo: Vasquez/Getty

From a band of Strokes proteges to a British synth-rock duo to a seventy-something slide guitarist, the names you’ll be talking about when New Jersey’s All Points West fest ends this weekend: the Postelles, La Roux, Seasick Steve and more:

• All Points West’s Acts to Watch

Plus, get another look at the best of the lineup, in photos:

• All Points West ‘09 Lineup: Jay-Z, Coldplay, Tool and More Bands Taking the Jersey Stage

And remember, Rolling Stone will be on the ground at All Points West all weekend bringing you live reports, photos and more.

Why it’s worth baking in the sun to see Heartless Bastards’ Erika Wennerstrom howl in the afternoon heat, squeezing in the tightly packed crowd to catch Jay-Z at his first-ever U.S. fest and pay attention to the Elvis Costello rock of the Postelles: here’s a rundown of 24 must-see sets at this weekend’s All Points West festival in New Jersey. Headliners Coldplay and Tool are clear picks along with My Bloody Valentine and the Black Keys, but what about the National, Gaslight Anthem, Shearwater, Organized Konfusion and Flying Lotus? Two dozen reasons to hit the grounds early and stay ’til the end are right here. And as always, Rolling Stone will be all over APW bringing you reports and interviews throughout the weekend, so stay tuned:

• All Points West’s Best: 24 Can’t-Miss Sets

With Ellis Island clearly visible from All Points West’s Liberty Park, Trey Anastasio took time to salute his Italian grandfather on Sunday, who came to America through that very gateway in 1910, with a celebratory rendition of “Drifting” early in his set. Given the abundance of Phish T-shirts on site, it would have been obscene for him not to revisit some catalog classics and the first notes of “Gotta Jiboo” gave the green light to almost 15 minutes of pure, tie-died ecstasy.

“One of our favorite things about festivals is the musicians backstage,” explained Jack Johnson’s keyboardist Zack Gild, and it was no empty statement as Johnson humbly shared his big APW moment with Trey Anastasio and Matt Costa. The Phish man arrived onstage having just finished his own set moments earlier and threw down an apparently improvised guitar part on “Mud Football.” Costa meanwhile added his much subtler input to “Fall Line” before seamlessly segueing into his own song “Sunshine,” helping to add a collaborative finale to APW’s inaugural event.

[Photograph by Chris Tuite for RollingStone.Com]

After spending the first 10 minutes of his set fixing puzzling over a malfunctioning guitar with a slew of equally perplexed roadies, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals got themselves out of jail with an impeccably played and impressively varied set on All Points West’s final day. Although the rock-tinged numbers allowed Harper to indulge the guitar-solo lover in him, it was the softer folk-reggae of “Excuse Me Mister” that got the early evening stoners swaying in a lightly bombed unison.

[Photograph by Chris Tuite for RollingStone.Com]

The first night featured a dedication to Underworld, the second to Kings of Leon, but aside from a few cosmetic differences Radiohead performed a pair of solid two-plus-hour headlining sets at New Jersey’s All Points West festival this weekend. Both shows were heavy on material from In Rainbows, and the Friday night crowd emitted a particularly loud rumble of approval for “Idioteque” from Kid A. Orange and yellow lights bathed the audience during “Lucky,” waking fans from the drowsy lullaby of “All I Need.” With Manhattan looming behind the audience, Thom Yorke dedicated “Pyramid Song” to “a very hectic city.”

The band’s LED lights were just as mesmerizing on Saturday night, as Radiohead took the stage again to toy with distance and intimacy in a massive setting. The only shots the band allowed on the Jumbotron were extreme close-ups (Yorke’s wriggling scruff, a mallet hitting a glockenspiel), so the crowd went craziest for the most tender and human elements of the night — the vulnerable solo vocals on “Nude,” the extra slow version of “Exit Music for a Film” — but maybe they were just breaking the tension.

[Photograph by Jason Bergman for RollingStone.Com]

The Roots worked extra hard on Saturday at All Points West, turning the moody, apocalyptic songs off their last two albums into monster party jams — “Long Time” was fast and loose, “Criminal” was a funk beast. Catering to the jam-friendly audience, their “You Got Me” was a sprawling epic, complete with a Rogers and Hammerstein interpolation, a one-handed Eddie Hazel-style guitar solo and a brief cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” that made everyone go apeshit … or at least everyone who didn’t leave in the mass exodus during the bass solo, all attempting to get good spots for Radiohead, naturally.

[Photograph by Chris Tuite for RollingStone.Com]

While Kings of Leon didn’t exactly have the most energy onstage on Saturday at All Points West, their positive vibes and effortless cool certainly translated to the first massive crowd of the day, who pogoed happily to their classic-rock rave-ups. The unexpected highlight of their set was “Sex On Fire,” the first single off upcoming album Only by the Night, which the band played live for the first time anywhere. A mix of Springsteen and Cold War Kids, “Fire” was a real triumph in a set already bursting with triumphant hooks.

[Photograph by Chris Tuite for RollingStone.Com]

A diverse All Points West lineup and a prime 5 p.m. slot for Animal Collective meant that their faithful throng of indie-geeks commingled peacefully with Widespread Panic tattoos and Jersey bros — all together to watch a band finger KAOS pads and whack tablas into a noise-drenched soup. Luckily, the Animals’ dubby mush, suffocating echo and quasi-Afrobeat distorto-rhythms were just as good as anything for everyone to get stoned and sway. Even the three minutes of crushing goop opening Panda Bear’s solo turn “Comfy in Nautica” was met with hypnotic attentiveness.

[Photograph by Jason Bergman for RollingStone.com]

An almost 30-minute delay before Duffy’s afternoon All Points West set had the crowd decked out in colorful vintage wayfarers barking out U.K. soccer chants, begging the show to start. Once the rain settled down, Duffy, in red patent-leather heels and a red-and-white striped tank, came out strong to the sounds of her debut album’s title track, “Rockferry.”

After posing like a bashful sailor girl, swinging her microphone cord and repeatedly pointing her finger to the sky, Duffy exclaimed, “l’m an awful dancer — I can’t move to save my life.” Turning to the audience, she begged for “Movement please!” as she broke into “Serious.” She ultimately worked through nearly every track on Rockferry, including an incredible “Warwick Avenue,” sultry “Stepping Stone” and “Delayed Devotion.” Just as soon as the crowd began cheering when she broke into “Mercy,” it was over.

[Photograph by Jason Bergman for RollingStone.Com]