There’s something of a buzz over Brighton as Thursday dawns. This year marks the tenth outing of The Great Escape Festival and it seems as though everyone has descended to the seaside city to get themselves a taste of the action. This year there’s over 600 bands that’ll be cropping up over the three days at both The Great Escape and its’ twin festival The Alternative Escape and with promises of more pop-up shows and more surprise special guests on the horizon, it’s really little wonder why we’re all here.
For those not recovering from hangovers from the pre-TGE parties, Klo offer a melodic start to the day. The duo craft melodies that bring Disclosure like beats with The xx influenced sparseness together with hushed, wispy vocals not unlike Lianne La Havas skating across the top. Fellow Australian’s Flyying Colours prove themselves to be a perfect fit to the low-ceiling, ample smog of Komedia as their fuzzing psychedelic indie swirls around in a hypnotic haze. If you’re not completely bewitched by the end of their set, there’s little hope for the rest of your weekend.
The newly renamed The Hope and Ruin still seems as impossible to get in to as years gone past as there’s a queue at least 50 people deep before Brighton’s Fickle Friends are due on stage at 3pm. Instead we catch the tail end of Arkells in an equally uncomfortably crowded Green Door Store. It’s toe-tapping, indie-pop at its’ finest with anthemic vocal harmonies that might even give Eliza & The Bear something to worry about.
Of course, there’s not only the 300 bands on the main Great Escape lineup to get into your ears– there’s the Alternative Escape as well. One of our favourite Alt-Escape venues (BLEACH) arguably has one of the strongest line-ups of the weekend starting with Southsea’s Pie & Vinyl x Strong Island Records showcase. Unfortunately Sacha whilst sounding fairly promising on record is a little disconnected live and the only person seemingly paying any attention is the person down the front who is definitely dancing to their own beat. Billed as “batshit ADHD electropop” Curxes sound interesting on paper but are absolutely horrendous live and absolutely no one needs to hear more than one track to know that it’s definitely not going to get any better. Morning Smoke easily make up for the lackluster performances and it’s a real headscratcher as to how they’re not yet on the main Great Escape lineup. Everything about their set is on-point– it’s noisy and thunderous with dark and foreboding overtones and if there’s one Brighton band on the cusp of something great: it’s this quartet.
It seems as though the rain has driven everyone into the nearest venue if the number of ‘at capacity’ texts that we receive in quick succession are to be believed. Green Door Store is once again uncomfortably cramped which means what should be the bouncy, dancing highlight of the day ends up being a rather more static affair. Despite not being able to put the oodles of boundless energy that All Tvvins inspire to use– it’s still a fantastic display of fast-paced indie-pop rhythms with the plenty of angular quirks to keep you interested. Though there is no denying that they definitely do have Cast of Cheers firmly rooted in their musical DNA.
Black Honey follow and provide a set that asserts why they’re generating such a buzz at the moment. Whilst their sound is firmly rooted in the 90’s– they infuse it with some of the best indie-rock and psychedelic sounds that have come in the intervening years– and play it with such angst and attitude it’s easy to feel that Black Honey are channeling all the disillusionment with their youth into the set. It’s undoubtedly frontwoman Izzy Bee that sets Black Honey out from the crowd as she switches between the role of dangerous, seductive siren and screaming, howling songstress of the damned.
Whilst there had been plans to head across the road to the absurdly tiny Prince Alberts for Tropics late-night show, it proves impossible with a queue spanning back around the corner an hour before the tropical, chillwave musician is even due to take to the stage. And at Green Door Store there’s an even longer queue for PINS. With that we decide to retire for the night– possibly the earliest we ever have at a Great Escape– with hopes for less queues on Friday.
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