A 50-quid, hour-and-a-bit troll: Aphex Twin, at Field Day, reviewed

Forty per cent of London is green space. And what we do with all that grass – all that potential – is pave it with music festivals. This year, Hyde Park hosted Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen. Gunnersbury Park had Boygenius. Finsbury Park welcomed Pulp and Travis Scott. Field Day is a staple of the season. Always falling on a Saturday in late August, the day is wholly reserved for electronic music.

Reams of twentysomethings make the pilgrimage: set off from wherever, change at Bank, District Line to Mile End, 15-minute walk, enter, set aside £7.50 for a can of warm Red Stripe. Everything is very clean: the organisers don’t want Woodstock. The first thing you see upon entry is a stand to buy Alpine’s MusicSafe Pro High Fidelity Earplugs. Of all the carefully curated food stalls, the queues outside Vegan Fried Chicken were the longest. Gone are nights in sticky tents in Donington and Thin Lizzy-induced tinnitus. Welcome wellbeing zones, organic gyros stalls and central London noise curfews. There’s a Field Day uniform: white vests and pearly necklaces for men; low-slung cargo pants and Doc Martens for women. Girls dress like boys, and boys dress like girls.

Aphex Twin – the headliner – is really called Richard D. James. He’s a DJ and electronic producer, has been making music for almost 40 years and I love him. So do Daft Punk, Steve Reich and Thom Yorke. He’s why I’m here. His first album, Selected Ambient Works 85-92, is the only work of music that’s ever convinced me that synaesthesia might not be baloney. His songs conjure up specific images in my head, always the same: ‘Tha’ is a municipal swimming pool, ‘#3’ a pair of eagles circling over an empty dessert, and ‘QKThr’ a lonesome hotel concierge shuffling bags.