The Great Escape 2011 – Three of Saturday's Best

Three days in, and cabin fever was beginning to bite at The Great Escape. In order to combat the gathering clouds of gloom, TLOBF ate five consecutive meals between the hours of 10am and 2pm. I’m pretty sure we saw Johnny Marr queuing for a free BBQ at an Australian music showcase. I imagine he only eats meat to spite Morrissey.

Three of the best acts from Saturday:

Seams

Seams keeps getting better. Someone described last night’s show as being “like Holden on a really good day,” and that is not entirely hyperbolic. The pastoral flutterings of the Tourist EP were given a welcome bass transfusion, and the result was a compulsively danceable set of smile-inducing melodies and arms-aloft drops. Impressive.

Lone

I feel rather sorry for the acts who played in the basement of the Queen’s Hotel. It is essentially a window-less conference room, built for flipcharts rather than sound systems. Despite the setting, Lone was fantastically entertaining. Tracks from Echolocations felt like old friends; absorbing, instantly endearing, and a lot of fun. After a morning of frustratingly earnest guitar bands, this was welcome respite indeed.

Melodica, Melody and Me

Remember how 2010 was full of bands with waistcoats and ukeleles? Remember how godawful that was? Well Melodica, Melody and Me are going some way towards reclaiming the (slightly twee) instrumentation that characterised those bands, and returning it to the realm of good taste. This was straightforward but expertly crafted pop music, delivered with panache and received ecstatically. A lovely way to round off the weekend.

And finally, an honorable mention for…

DZ Deathrays

They were scrappy as hell, but this Australian duo were undeniable fun. Sounding like Iron Maiden one minute and Japandroids the next, they were thrashy, brash, and ridiculously enjoyable. DZ Deathrays are in the UK for another week; Londoners can catch them at White Heat on Tuesday.