So
here we are at the first night of the The Great Escape
Festival ‘TGE' bursting with excitement at the
prospect of seeing so many new bands and artists from
all over the globe. It’s a 3 day festival over
60 venues with around 200 bands playing and accompanying
me on this musical extravaganza is my business partner/best
friend Lily. Together we’ve come as a secret tag
team hoping to cover as many venues as possible. Already
the town is awash with skinny jeans and elaborate scruffy
mops of hair buzzing around in hope of suppressing their
raw live music fix.
Our first Great Escape festival experience
kicked off with Brighton’s 5 piece band Restlesslist.
Which consists of a collective of individuals including
members from Electric Soft Parade and Zettasaur. The
rather odd looking bunch of lads managed to produce
a sound that emcompasses a stomping mash of samples,
beats and horns.
Taking some samples and adding music to
match, Restlesslist break away from the traditional
'repeat a famous riff till your sick’ method of
sampling and embark on a journey that makes an original
accompaniment to the sounds captured in their loops.
Restlesslist will appeal to fans of The
Brakes and The Electric Soft Parade, but with influences
from a host of obscure and mainstream artists including
The Books, Anticon Records, The Unicorns, Joe Meek,
The Chap and Gorillaz their appeal reaches out to very
different audiences as well. May we suggest you check
these guys out immediately! (Maybe we add myspace link??)
Next stop was to catch the last of The
Young Knives as we’d been advised through TGE’s
handy little text service that Vampire Weekend was full
capacity. Allowing us enough time to buy a pint and
wiggle our way through the crowds we managed to catch
our fauvourite track ‘Up all Night’ which
(you guessed it) sent the crowd into a frenzy with our
pints in tow… We then decided to hot foot it along
the Pier to catch the guilty pleasures Danish pop act
Alphabeat much to Lily’s dismay. (Bribing Lily
with cider and chips always works!) I’d say this
gig probably won the prize for most diverse crowd in
attendance. This was also a gig I was most looking forward
to having heard lots of their stuff online The band
seemed to be having a great time with singer Anders
happily banging away on his tambourine most of the set..
Fascination" was amazing as there was an exhilarating
energy coming from the stage, leaving the audience shouting
for more.
Friday kicked off with a bang as we feasted
our eyes on Friendly Fires, A grimy forceful cover of
Frankie Knuckles "Your Love" got the crowd
leaping around. Ed MacFarlane is a riotous front man
and bounced and punched into the clattering crowd. In
turn he was bounced and punched back. Overall Friendly
Fires lie somewhere between the poppiness of Snap! The
funkiness of Prince and the electronic dancieness of
Daft Punk. Our last stop of the night was within Brighton’s
newest live music venue Brighton Coalition to see the
likes of PNAU; Pnau is an Australian dance music duo
made up of Nick Littlemore and Peter Mayes. This duo
are an amazing live and have mastered the art of reminiscence
and innovation, taking the current trend to drive the
way forward with their positive and futurist hybrid
act. Not a single limb of ours didn’t writhe and
move to the intelligent hooks and fat sounds that propel
from the stage. Next up was the equally pleasing Adam
Freeland ending the night with a mixture of techno and
breaksy beats.
Donning large sunglasses and with hangovers
to matched we headed back into the musical hotbed that
was Brighton and stumbled across 5 piece band Telegraphs
(personal favourites of ours) once again the didn’t
fail to impress with their melodic rock sounds and Darcy’s
exuberant stage presence and Hattie’s ghostly
harmonies you can’t help but feel these guys are
destined for big things. (Maybe add myspace here) To
round off this superb festival we were blessed with
the deeply moving set played by Wintersleep a Canadian
indie rock band from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Their music
style is rooted in indie rock and has ambient and occasional
shoegaze elements and the last stop of the night but
certainly not least was Lily favourite band of the moment
(ooh as well as The Telegraphs and Restlesslist) Flamboyant
Bella. Whom I have to say were deeply impressive with
the cutest female singer who stuck two fingers up to
the standard band uniform of skinny jeans and vests
giving any hard nosed fashionista a run for her money
preferring to wear a gorgeous floaty dress and strappy
heels.
What a fantastic festival we were truly
honoured to be a part of something so special, three
fab days of great bands, great venues and great people.
We felt like lucky lucky people…. Needless to
say we’ll be back again next year 10/10!!
Written by Berni Adamic
  
(from left) Flamboyant
Bella, Telegraphs, Restlesslist
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