Dan Croll: Komedia Downstairs Bar (Natt)
Liverpool based singer-songwriter Dan Croll (with his live band) proved to be the perfect way to ease into the final day of TGE13. His bright, sunshine electronic folk-pop was a horrendously pleasant way to wrap up the hungover/sleep deprived heads in the room. Croll himself proved to be quite the performer already with a mesmerising stage presence whilst performing and quite the laugh when not– engaging in plenty of crowd-banter. ‘Compliment Your Soul‘ although about a relationship gone wrong already showed the depth and promise of Croll’s abilities with tropical melodies alongside an acoustic guitar and crisp vocals.
Fist City: Blind Tiger (Jon Brady) Hailing from somewhere in the mysterious land of Canada, punk outfit Fist City sound exactly like wading through an urban complex of endless punching. Uncompromising and noisy, lead singer Kier Fist thought nothing of literally stagediving – proper, good old-fashioned stagediving – into a cover of Devo’s Uncontrollable Urge after a smattering of explosively short punk blasts. There’s bursts of surf and the riot grrl bands of the 90s in between the noise; while there’s always a danger of melding into a single drone, the band move around enough to keep your attention as equally focused on them as their music.
Hot Glass: Pav Tav (Daddsy)
We’ve spoken pretty highly of Hot Glass in the past, but it pains me to admit I’d never really given them a proper listen before the show. It’s almost as though the band forgot it was the third day of the festival, and people were a little fragile, and early in the day they saw fit to hammer us with fuzzy guitars, lush delay soaked riffs and some amazing vocals from Ryan, really hitting the high notes when needed.
Eliza and the Bear: The Haunt (Natt)
Not even 12 hours after leaving venue the night before, I wound up back at The Haunt (the bouncers recognised me as well which was mildly alarming) and joining my first queue of the weekend to get to see Eliza and the Bear. Luckily I did get in to catch the last 15 minutes of their set, which was enough to show me exactly why there was a queue. They’re a band already built with the potential for crowd-wide sing-alongs at Glastonbury in their sights. Their indie-folk set was full of the feel-good factor with every song acting to uplift spirits further. Debut single ‘Upon The North‘ perfectly showcased everything good about the set– lovely vocal harmonies, guitars and piano. Stay tuned to the Pyramid Stage 2014 for these guys.
The Beards: Festival Hub (Jon Brady) Jubilee Square smack bang in the middle of Brighton city centre is the annual home of The Great Escape’s nerve centre – wristbands, t-shirts and free, open-air bands for all. Saturday afternoon saw Australian demi-gods The Beards take to the Hub’s microcosmic Airstream stage. A band renowned for singing about beards and being the possessors of enviable facial topiary, The Beards drew one of the biggest crowds seen at the Hub during the entire festival. They regaled the crowds with glam rock classic You Should Consider Having Sex With A Bearded Man and mixed keytars with saxophone solos across plentiful pickings from their three-album-strong back catalogue.
There was, for every laugh, a pearl of true knowledge. The sorrowful dirge of The Beard Accessory Store told of the perils of owning and running a small business; If Your Dad Doesn’t Have A Beard, You’ve Got Two Mums rang uncomfortably true for every beardless man in the crowd. Those who stopped by out of morbid curiosity came away enlightened, packing tissue-paper facial fuzz and chin-stroking contemplation. Quoth The Beards: No Beard, No Good.
Olympians: Pav Tav (Daddsy)
Olympians seem to have got the memo about the fragility of the audience. Slowing the tempo down a bit a lot the band giving themselves a bit of a warm up and our heads a bit of a relaxing session. Slightly slower versions of Everything’s Amazing (No One Died) and Foreign Language really hit the spot on that mid-Saturday afternoon, the band showing their musical abilities frequently playing the guitar and synth at the same time. I love Olympians on record, but they rock live too. Dangerous.
IYES: The Mesmerist (Natt)
‘A technical hitch has left us without our backing tracks‘ Melis, one half of Brighton’s alt-pop act IYES explained as they stood on the ‘stage’ at the Blog Up TGE showcase. For many other bands, they’d call it quits at this point. However IYES turned out to be one of the ‘show must go on’ types and instead played a stripped-back set with just their vocals and guitars. Certainly a brave move but one that paid off as it gave chance for their simply sublime vocal abilities and song-writing talents to shine through. The male-female vocal harmonies of Melis and Josh were spectacular; Melis’s soft, airy vocals the direct counterpoint to Josh’s more anchored indie tones. Definitely ones to keep your IYES on.
The Ribs: JB’s American Diner (Daddsy)
At last years Great Escape I didn’t really feel up to eating much, and just had one of JB’s legendary milkshakes. It was pretty amazing, but something was missing, something that looked like delicious ribs. One year later, and those ribs finally got consumed. Was it worth the wait? I’d say yes; their delicious marinade topped perfectly cooked pork ribs in a quantity that basically said “you’re going to get up tomorrow morning and go for a 13 mile run to get through this”. The nachos were also of stupid proportion. The Oreo milkshake was rad too.
CHVRCHES: Digital (Jon Brady) One of Glasgow’s biggest new acts wiggling out of the woodwork, CHVRCHES surely grabbed the award for the Longest Queue of The Festival. The queue stretched for a hundred yards from the entrance to Digital, packed with the most optimistic people you could ever encounter. And yet inside, there was an odd air of disappointment. CHVRCHES specialise in wintry-cold electronic music powered by handclaps and the dreamy, metallic vocals of Lauren Mayberry – Depeche Mode surfing the super information highway. Their music is hugely listenable, but not necessarily danceable. This failed to deter the crowd at Digital, a mass of freaks and steers determined to flail to anything regardless of tempo or mood. A band best swayed to became lost among endless bellowing and sweaty raving based saved for something infinitely more instantaneous, in an atmosphere that didn’t suit the cold auras generated by Recover and The Mother We Share. Recommended, by all means, but aim for shows in smaller venues or you’ll find yourself a very small fish in a very big, very unfamiliar sea.
Egyptian Hip Hop: One Inch Badge RSVP Party (Natt)
I’d been meaning to see Egyptian Hip Hop since 2010’s Some Reptiles Grew Wings, so hearing of a one of date at TGE13 had me a little bit excited. Unfortunately for me though, this excitement was completely unjustified. Egyptian Hip Hop are an example of a band that went bad, fast (and you can only speculate why). The only way to describe the set was disappointing and I don’t mean just from a TGE perspective; I mean full stop… I’ve never been so disappointed by a band ever before. The set itself started 20 minutes late after an excessively long set-up time from the band (making The Strypes set nigh on impossible to get to, reinforcing the bad taste in my mouth) and when it kicked off it proved not to be worth the wait. Their music encourages a certain amount of lucidity but the band looked completely disinterested whilst the audience remained rather impassive to the entire thing. Even my favourite off the album ‘Tobago‘ was not enough to save an already shambolic set so I ended up doing something I’ve never done at a gig before… I got up and left.
The Physics House Band: Concorde 2 (Jon Brady) Formed and developed in Brighton, The Physics House Band lack a little punch on their Horizons/Rapture EP. Live, they are a different, more explosive story. Sounding a little like Between The Buried and Me having an instrumental jam session, the three-piece specialises in experimental progressive rock. Keyboard arpeggios soared along the scales as relentless drums pushed forward in a flurry of endless snare rolls and kicks. Driven by basslines demanding of every ounce of your attention, their live performance is one of such determined precision that it becomes mesmerising watching them work. Seeing each note and each beat fall into place becomes a matter of delicate, yet immediate calculation. The result is a sound that carries off-beat progressive grooves along on a train of mathematical endearment. Live, it’s something very special indeed.
Wot Gorilla?: Pav Tav (Daddsy)
It’s hard to describe my feelings towards Wot Gorilla?’s set, but I have to so here goes: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! Yeah, that’s basically it. Insane tapping, brilliantly written songs, fun fun fun fun fun fun fun. So there. If you were elsewhere at The Great Escape while Wot Gorilla were on stage you pretty much ruined your weekend. Sorry.
Parquet Courts: The Haunt (Natt)
I headed back to The Haunt and back to a queue to get in to see Parquet Courts which, at times, looked like it wasn’t going to happen. Luckily I was one of the last to get in and caught the tail-end of Deap Vally (who had replaced incapacitated Jagwar Ma) so I managed to catch the main attraction. Laden with attitude and swagger, the band powered through their set which comprised of a surprising amount of new material alongside songs from their debut Light Up Gold. Their garage-rock went over a treat; with thrashing guitars at one hell of a tinnitus inducing volume it had a certain wildness about the performance. It even managed to encourage a state of disarray in the first few rows of the audience which definitely was the perfect reception.
We Are The Physics: Pav Tav (Jon Brady) Powered by shouting, noise and pretending to be clueless, Glasgow’s We Are The Physics rounded off the final day of TGE13 with an appropriately madcap set at the Pav Tav. Pulling off tops to reveal matching ‘PHYSICS’-embroidered shirts, the band encouraged nothing less than absolute and certain mentality from the 200-strong crowd packed into a giant wooden sardine tin of a venue. Napoleon Loves Josephine, Goran Ivanisevic and more rang out as Dingus Khan’s Ben and a member of the crowd known only as Brian took to the stage to improvise on guitar – as vocalist Michael M professed, the band simply pretended to know what they were doing and anybody could do what they do. Maybe, but very few can hold a crowd like them, or build up as much energy at the end of a long and arduous three-day festival. That there, behind the crazy math rock and endless shouting, is what makes them such a highlight.
We Are The Physics: Pav Tav (Daddsy)
At the end of a good weekend, what you really need are a band who basically promote jumping about in the middle of an alcohol soaked floor, where there’s a huge amount of broken glass, that band is We Are The Physics. Playing their fun punky rock with ecstatic vocals and loud guitars, 3D specs and bouncing, the band worked their way through a lot of Your Friend, The Atom people colliding during ‘Go Go Nucleo‘, singing back through ‘Napoleon Loves Josephine‘. Probably the most exercise I had all weekend.
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