On Friday night in Brighton, England, dozens – if not hundreds – of bands from the UK and around the world played across dozens of venues around the city for the second day of The Great Escape 2015. Our highlights from the day kicked off early with Plymouth singer/songwriter Jamie Lawson performing an intimate set in the Spiegelpub, fresh off his Australian tour with Ed Sheeran and Conrad Sewell. A far cry from the indoor stadiums he was playing there!
The artist, who was recently announced as the first artist signed to Ed Sheeran’s new label Gingerbread, proved just how brilliant and well received music from this part of the world can be when a man and his guitar sing about love. “Wasn’t Expecting That”, which recently went platinum in Australia, was part of a set which mainly looked ahead to the music we’ll be hearing off his debut record, due out in September. “Ahead of Myself” ended the set
Irish band Arborist were playing in the nearby Spiegeltent following Jamie’s set, a six piece with an incredible sound, led by the beautiful vocals of Mark McCambridge. “The Broken Light” was a set highlight. They were the sort of band that stop you in your tracks – and once you’ve experienced them, you know you want more. I listened to some five tracks, and all of them blew me away.
Back in the Spiegelpub, 18 year old Norwegian singer Aurora was performing her first set of the day in intimate acoustic mode, accompanied only by a guitarist. She’s perform later than night in full band “pop” mode at the Brighton Coalition, but this was something really special here in the tent – which had people standing in their droves on the wings just to try and get a taste of this buzzed about artist. She had a stunning voice and proved herself to be the sort of artist who can manage to perform sans guitar and still manage to blow everyone away.
I’d been wanting to catch the band Cairo all week – having missed them at Canadian Music Week. Based out of Toronto, the five piece explore elements of folk, complete with violin and solid orchestrations, while bringing in a world of influences. “Age/Sex/Race” was a particular highlight as was “One at a Time” and their single “A History of Reasons” – all of which come off their record of the same name. A band definitely worth checking out.
Speaking of bands worth checking out, we first met this band backstage at T in the Park last year, a Scottish group by the name of Model Aeroplanes. Since July, they’ve released tracks like “Deep In The Pool” – yet another indication of just how easily catchy they’ve made their indie pop music. And live they only serve to back this up. This is a band you can dance to and they do the genre proud.
Bristol group Falling Stacks delivered some powerful “post-punk” rock at one of the many unofficial parties going on around town, this one at The Basement. They were loud, they were heavy and they were a lot of fun.
And then I got to see a band buzzing about town – Nothing But Thieves. This is a band worthy of the hype – which hasn’t seemed to have reached Australia yet, but certainly has landed here in the UK. It was like watching Jeff Buckley leading a rock band, with incredible vocals from Conor Mason and huge energy from the first note. The Essex four piece are tight they know when to get cocky with their guitars (in a Muse sort of way) and when to hold back, they know when to let Conor shine and when to bring it all together and they know how to write a song. I was floored by this band. Make sure you check them out.
Another artist to live up to the hype around town was Jack Garratt, a one man guitarist / electronic artist / drum machine. With an emotive voice, heavy bass and a world of live loops – this is not just a technically impressive performer, but he sounds great too. Fans of Chet Faker should definitely look him up if they haven’t already – though I would say he offers substantial more energy musically and in the live respect, the two are incomparable. There are few performers busier on stage than Garrett. Robert Delong being the only other that comes to mind…
I’d wanted to see London group Is Tropical for a long time now, and they did not disappoint with fun, experimental, indie electronica that had the room dancing. This was held at the Alternative Escape Spindle Party on the Brighton Pier.
I ended my night at the Corn Exchange, first catching the end of Sydney’s DMA’s, who were playing in front of thousands of people in the country they were born to play. They ended with “Play It Out” and the crowd seemed very much into it…
…but it was Django Django most were there to see, and the band only disappointed in the fact that they had too short a set! This is a group who are another Great Escape success story, having played a tiny venue at the festival many years ago, and are now headlining one of the event’s biggest. Surprisingly, the band swayed against the tradition of most other bands at the festival and played primarily old songs, as they performed a stripped back version of the show they’re touring at the moment. Almost the entire set rested on their self-titled debut, from “Hail Bop” to “Default”, with extended outros, intros and jam sessions (so much cowbell!) added in for good measure. For fans of the band, it was a real treat – though with only two songs from Born Under Saturn (out now) that I could count, we may have to see them again very soon to get to enjoy more of the new treats.
Stay tuned for more action from The Great Escape, exclusively on the AU review. All photos by Larry Heath.
