There are only two ways you should cure a hangover at The Great Escape. The first is heading for a brisk walk along the Brighton seafront and hoping that the sea air clears the brain fog or, at the very least, watching all those jogging down the front makes you feel guilty enough to snap out of your hangover-moping. The second is to wake yourself up, get down to Spoons and grab yourself a pint with breakfast and throw yourself into the music as soon as possible.
For those that don’t pull themselves out of bed for the early start to see Kassassin Street at Sticky Mike’s— they miss out on a set that exemplifies why the band are one of Southsea’s most exciting exports at the moment. It’s a maelstrom of colourful, psychedelic melodies with eastern percussive elements bleeding through and gets the early morning warmed up for the day that is to follow.
Any residual cobwebs we may have are blown away rather abruptly by Spring King who seem precariously balanced on the precipice of chaos right from the get go. There might be many things conspiring to derail their set– but it doesn’t slow the band down. Instead they harness these disasters and make their frenetic garage-rock a ramshackled triumph that you wish had lasted a lot longer than just the fleeting visit they’ve given the Dome Studio. It’s a hard act to follow and Boxed In, at points, do look to be suffering for it. Though they are inherently a band that on record bring us an electro-indie disco– they struggle with doing so today. Whether it be because their rhythms seem ever so slightly mistimed or the fact that their vocalist has the same tone as the bloke off ‘Being a Dickhead’s Cool’— it just feels all a bit mediocre.
Across town in the half-renovated, half-still a building site, venue of Patterns the alarmingly young Brighton quartet High Tyde are proving themselves to be one of the most slick bands we’ve seen in a long time. They’ve already got deep, bone-rattling electronics and punchy guitar riffs aplenty which in itself is enough to get the audience here dancing along with abandon. But it’s the natural showmanship and swagger of the band– lead by frotnman Cody– that really makes High Tyde have that ‘wow’ factor that leaves the crowd whooping and hollering long after the set has finished.
Duo Nai Harvest are tasked with kicking off the evening’s proceedings at Coalition and they do so in fine form. Their fuzzy-punk has an added edge of mania live which brings tracks like ‘Spin‘ to another level of fist-pumping riotousness. We can’t help but feel that the house show they promise for later in the weekend will easily dissolve into the carnage that the two-piece rightfully deserve. In possibly one of the most jarring contrasts of the weekend Beach Baby follow and take us in a far more chilled, laid-back direction. Their 90’s shoegaze fuzz of sound easily recalls languid days spent contemplating life out in the sunshine and forthcoming single ‘No Mind No Money‘ easily marks itself out as contender for anthem of the summer.
A quick run up the road to The Mesmerist means we’re just in time to see Compny play their first Brighton show– though there’s definitely something very recognisable about the quartet (we’re not going to give it away). Their set is positively brimming with rich, warm pop-hooks and textured vocals that ensures that Compny has personality enough to make sure they’re not simply lumped in with the myriad of other pop bands that are appearing out of the woodwork right now.
Meanwhile back on the seafront in Brighton’s answer to the TOWIE set, BBC Introducing have taken up residence to showcase some of their hotly tipped artists for the year. Somewhat stereotypically for what you’d expect to soundtrack Shoosh, we enter to sparse electronic beats and R’n’B vibes being orchestrated by Raye. Though she’s got an impressive voice it doesn’t half sound eerily like all the other R’n’B songstresses out there at the moment. From their debut single release we had pegged Hooton Tennis Club to also be another band that sounds like everyone else and had been ready to put them into the indie band landfill– but they prove we really shouldn’t be so hasty. Their set reveals that there’s a lot more to this band than the catchy,made-for-radio, indie-guitar jangles of ‘Jasper‘ waiting in the wings: lo-fi, pop, grunge and shoegaze elements are all there… Plus they’ve got songnames straight out of the Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco School of Naming Things— which is about as entertaining as it is baffling.
Once again The Hope and Ruin thwarts any plans of seeing all the bands we had intended to see– so we end up seeing The Twerps instead of Asylums. The Twerps though are yet another surprising find as their live renditions easily outstrips their recorded counterparts. Plus the band themselves prove themselves endlessly entertaining with off the wall humour and quips which includes having a dig at Razorlight‘s Johnny Borrell– and how can you not like a band after that?
Described as ‘grunge filled chaos grounded in shoegaze’ it’s almost impossible not to want to go and check out Philadelphia’s Creepoid. Their sound is exactly what it says on the tin: moments of heavy, slimy grunge give way to luscious shoegazing highs. It’s like digging your hands into thick, repugnant mud and uncovering a diamond buried within and makes Creepoid one of the most distinct bands of the weekend.
With feet aching and ears still protesting from the loud, juddering guitars of Creepoid we really can’t face the idea of heading over to Late Night Lingerie and waiting until 4am to catch Eighteen Nightmares at the Lux. Instead it’s all about heading home, soaking those weary feet in the bath and mentally preparing ourselves for the third and final day of running around Brighton.
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