Best Fit to present stage at New York's New Colossus

Our British House Party, hosted on 6 March at Parkside Lounge from 10pm-1:30am, will bring together five of the UK’s exciting acts on the rise.

“(Lio Kanine) and I are both huge Britpop fans and fans of Oasis, Blur, Stone Roses, Charlatas, etc. There still always so much great music coming out of the UK, and we're able to go to showcase festivals like the Great Escape, Focus Wales and Wide Days (Scotland) to tell people to come play the festival each year,” says Steven Matrick, the festival’s co-founder. “Having an all British lineup every year has created such a fun party.”

Each year, Matrick and his team seek to give gig opportunities to the best of the best. Following on the SXSW train, he saw an opportunity to get the exciting groups on the rise all together in New York before the great pilgrimage to Austin. In doing so, he’s also helped revitalize the scene in the Lower East Side, where he originally came up.

“Festival Co-Founder Mike Bell approached me about the New Colossus Festival as the booker of Pianos and then his partner quit so we teamed up. He rightly pointed out the scattershot nature of bands coming to NYC on their way to SXSW and how we should centralize it in the neighborhood we love,” Matrick says of his origin story at the festival. “We chose Lio Kanine from Kanine Records to help us with booking as he always threw amazing parties at CMJ. We did a test run in 2018 on both floors at Pianos the week before SXSW, and it went extremely well. We went full throttle in 2019. The goal is to welcome international artists to New York by giving them multiple shows in from of NYC music industry.”

At Best Fit’s stage, Matrick has helped hand-pick a taste of that greatness.

Marvin’s Revenge, relative newcomers from Nottingham, are an alternative rock group from the midlands. Comprised of a group of friends, they’ve been breaking out on the UK live scene with Pixies-esque material that they’re now bringing to New York.

The Fiends, an indie act from Wales, will stop at New Colossus for one of the group’s first U.S. dates. Formed during the pandemic, they’ve been bubbling in Swansea and are building brick-by-brick through a steady stream of live shows.

Hongza, born in London, serves up indie influenced by the likes of Wolf Alice and The 1975. His signature shoegaze sound earned him a spot on the longlist for Glastonbury’s 2024 Emerging Artists Competition, with massive choruses and lush soundscapes that keep you coming back for more.

A West London band that came together in the boredom of 2020, Sterling Press are making their mark with attitude-filled, 90s influenced indie. Having supported acts like The Native, Goa Express, and Spyres and headlined Liverpool’s O2 Academy, the band will be bringing the heat to New Colossus.

Closing out the night with dance-punk, we have test plan. Bringing together the members’ disparate traditions from Greece, the UK, and Dubai, the London-based DIY trio thread the needle between dancing and moshing. Together, they make records that seek to foster catharsis, purpose, and joy.