Festival Review: The Great Escape 2023
Well it’s that time of year again – back for another weekend packed to bursting with the newest artists around, Great Escape Festival takes over 30+ venues throughout Brighton, showcasing over 500 acts in a weekend full of musical discovery. With many of the industry’s leading minds descending on the city it’s the best opportunity in the country to catch many future festival headliners in the making.
As Thursday gets underway we make our inaugural step out of the tempting seaside sun and into the first dingy club of the weekend. A staple of the Brighton queer scene, we stumble into Revenge for the unwieldy sounds of The Umlauts. Now a 9-strong live ensemble, the band are still constantly evolving, clashing together a mixed heritage of English/Austrian/French/Italian members into a multi-lingual kraut-punk experiment. With heavily layered synth sounds of every register and an ear-catching, chugging violin, they nonchalantly traverse many realms of electronica and rock, impossible to pin down, but an exciting start to the wealth of music on offer at the festival.
The Umlauts - Photo Credit: Richard Mukuze
As well as adopting the numerous established venues of the city, for the last few years Great Escape has built its own Beach complex on Brighton’s beloved pebbles, with three extra stages to spearhead the proceedings. Making our way down for the first time, the Amazon Stage hosts ARXX, a Brighton duo making such ground-shaking, catchy queer pop-punk that even God herself must be jumping around to it. The title track to their debut album, Ride or Die, has a hugely unifying hook, bringing everyone in the tent into their inner circle of pals when they call back “Tell me would you ride? (I would!) Tell me would you die? (I would!)” at the top of their lungs. It’s that great early crowd interaction that’s going to sound huge in fields across the country for summers to come.
ARXX - Photo Credit: Ant Adams
For a far heavier and hard-hitting choice we head up the hill to One Church, which serves as an inclusive religious space in its day-to-day, as well as a venue for the community, and now one of Great Escape’s most architecturally impressive settings. It’s the rampage of Teeside’s Benefits that we’re here to see. With fiercely political punk sermons delivered through the undisputed rage of frontman Kingsley Hall, he brings the room to their knees as he spits truths of a divided country. Through juxtaposing passages of sudden silence and crashing noise the drums and guitars fight to keep up, and with intensely current lyrics of tracks like “Empire” and “Flag” he picks apart the archaic need for nationalism in a modern Britain. It’s a gripping chase from start to finish, and for the many feeling despair at the state of the country it’s a cathartic release to behold such accurate honesty in music.
Benefits - Photo Credit: Ant Adams
Back on the beach for the much-anticipated takeover from indie label Speedy Wunderground, and one of their most exciting signings to date, O. Comprised simply of the seriously talented Tash Keary on drums and Joe Henwood dropping the bass on baritone saxophone, they mix a dark and noisy meld of jazz, dub, and electronic music into something new, refreshing and undeniably funky. And they’re followed by dark stars Heartworms, who are led by the enigmatic voice of Jojo Orme. The performance is a complete projection of Orme’s image, obscure, gothic, untouchable, she expertly takes us through their newly released EP, A Comforting Notion.
Meanwhile across the beach the equally stormy but more glitzy and experienced Sorry headline the Amazon Stage. Now two albums in, they are firm favourites at any festival, displaying a sulky performance of tunes old and new. They get cruelly cut off by a strict noise curfew during the last song, but determined to finish their set uninterrupted they hammer through to the end unamplified. It’s the kind of rebellious spirit against the restraints of the festival that you have to love to see, whatever your position in the music industry.
As the sun rises on a new day, train strikes restrict the many day-trippers from the capital, leading to a somewhat more subdued Friday than it would normally be. With so much on the lineup already it can be easy to stick to big names and venues, but looking to the peripheries the Alt-Escape offers even more shows, completely free entry in some of the cities beloved pubs, such as Fiddler’s Elbow and the Hope & Ruin. In the morning we catch Modern Woman in the corner of North Laine Brewhouse, where crowds gather quickly when performances begin but it’s good to see that faces young and old from the local community can benefit from the festival, whether they have a wristband or not.
We make it back into One Church where Horizons Cymru are showing off the best of Wales for the day. Alice Low is a dynamic newcomer who’s tumultuous life has landed her in the welcoming arms of Cardiff as her hometown. With a voice akin to Bowie in his most androgynous, Low’s set takes an often tongue-in-cheek tone when discussing her identity as a trans woman. But it’s clear that embracing her body, her voice, and her image has led to her empowerment, as she dresses down the audience with sultry confidence.
We spend much of the rest of the day in Chalk, a huge club usually filled with wasted student, colourful shots and bad decisions, and today it’s home to some of the wildest, messiest, free-est acts of the weekend. While elsewhere much of the festival may be showcasing the TikTok revolution within the music industry - with its polished bedroom popstars reveling in their 15 minutes of uber fame - there’s still a large majority here to appreciate the gritty side of the industry and the artists doing it the old fashioned way. Fierce three piece Snayx kick off the Marshal Amps punk takeover in heavy fashion. The growling bass riffs make the floor tremble and your bones vibrate, as big on bravado and stage presence as they are on beefy beats, frontman Charlie Herridge bounces around the stage leaning into the attention of the crowd. Their hooks are undeniable and immediately get stuck in your head, like new single “I’m Deranged”.
SNAYX - Photo Credit: Richard Mukuze
The next big punk hitters are even more unhinged and here for a good time. Lambrini Girls are three women from Brighton who are grabbing the live music scene by the balls, calling out abusers and fighting for a safer environment for all. Whether it’s normalising shouting about your sexuality (“Help Me I’m Gay”) or rallying against toxic masculinity (“Lads Lads Lads”), the band are clear about their ethos. Fronted by Phoebe Lunny, she’s an effortless performer. Climbing the bar, getting down on the floor, crowdsurfing across the room, she is one with her people. She trusts the crowd to treat her right and they trust her. And they’re only just gaining momentum as a band – if they carry on with this kind of influence it’ll inject some much-needed respect between both audiences and bands into many circles of gigging communities.
Lambrini Girls - Photo Credit: RIchard Mukuze
Rounding off the night, we return to the beloved beach, where London weirdos Fat Dog tear up the TGE stage, and Dublin’s The Murder Capital take a more measure approach closing the Amazon stage. They’re a band who bring raw emotion and integrity through their songwriting, with their debut album following the heavy events of a friend’s suicide, their latest, Gigi’s Recovery, is continually intimate but more guarded, yet hopeful. One of the more poignant performances of the weekend.
FAT DOG - Photo Credit: Richard Mukuze
The Murder Capital - Photo Credit: Richard Mukuze
On Saturday we’re hit with the best weather, and it’s a hard sell to swap out the beating sun for a dark stuffy room, but in the name of discovery we check out Portsmouth fourpiece Hallan in the basement at Latest Music Bar, where they’re bringing their shiny new post-punk to a full room. Backed by Nice Swan Records, they boast some good punchy electronic beats underneath snarling lyrics of social commentary. There’ll always be more sun to soak up, but these moments of catching new talent in their early days are harder to come by.
With the industry thinned right out by now, it’s the 6Music Dads who are leading the charge now in what’s the best band to see, and they’re queuing right down the road at Patterns to see Dublin’s Sprints. Bringing a riot grrl ethos to the masses, the crowd engagement is easy in this one with the stage directly on the floor, so vocalist Karla Chubb can shout their demands for gender equality right into the faces of the listener. By the end of the set the room has readily descended into chaos, with some middle-aged blokes reliving their anarchist youth and starting a fairly respectable mosh pit. Proving you’re never too old to be on the right side of history.
Volks is a club known for its late nights and loudness with no limits, and today it’s host to the hardcore corner, with help from Upset. On a tiny compact stage that you have to duck to get into, Chubby and the Gang rip into a raucous set of post-rock madness. A pit opens up in from the first song and doesn’t stop, constantly bashing each other around in a sweaty, beer-sodden mess. But it’s beautiful to watch and a Chubby crowd will never change, no matter what changes come of the turbulent band, the sound is still there.
PVA - Photo Credit: Richard Mukuze
Back into the depths at Chalk, it’s PVA that close the show for us. Bringing pulsating electronics into a live setting, they’ve now played the festival several times but this band remain as mysterious in their sound and direction as the day they started. The threepiece are a no-brainer at festivals, creating rave-tinged rock with subtle synths and Ella Harris’s robotic vocals, it’s the void of emotion that needs to be heard in the darkest space with an impressive light show to hand. It’s been another rollercoaster weekend taking in so much in such a short space of time, but there’s so much to sink your teeth into for the exciting future of music.
Words by Alice Jenner
Photography by Richard Mukuze and Ant Adams
