The Great Escape Festival, Brighton

Once again, The Great Escape moved London down to Brighton for three days of excess by the seaside. Having taken on board complaints about distances between venues from last year, more venues have been taken on, making it easier to get between shows and to dip in and out of performances. As ever there is a mixture of unknowns, hot tips and established names, all playing in a variety of places. This year even saw The King Blues playing in Brighton’s sewers (insert your own joke here).

A festival for punters and industry alike, this means a plethora of national showcases, from the likes of Finland, France, Australia (who through a Barbecue of course) and no less than three official showcases from Canada: Nova Scotia, M for Montreal and Canadian Blast doing the honors.

With so much on offer over the three days, it can often be tough to pick what band to see. So, here are the highlights of TLOBF’s three days of galavanting around the Sussex Coast:

Ghost Bees:
As twin sisters Sari and Romy Lightman take the stage they ask the question: “Could we get a little darker?” Although aimed at the lighting man, it stands as a fairly accurate description of the direction their music has headed since they unleashed “Tasseomancy”on the unsuspecting world in 2008. Looping mandolin and fingerpicked guitars underpin the sisters haunting harmonies and tales of birth trauma and mausoleums. Delay pedals string out phrases and combine for an exquisite and spine tingling meeting of folk and drone.

Ed Harcourt:
Taking the stage with an 8 piece band is always an ambitious mission. Attempting to do it while on a stage “the size of a Gnome’s bedroom” is even more difficult. As a result Ed Harcourt arrived on stage over twenty minutes late. But was it ever worth the wait. Playing almost exclusively from his forthcoming record “Lustre”, every song felt familiar, once again demonstrating Harcourt’s knack with a melody and a turn of phrase. Put simply, Harcourt is one of the most underated pop songwriters currently operating in Britain, or anywhere else for that matter. Songs like the touching “Fears of a Father”, “Church of No Religion” and “Lustre” are earworms of the highest order, while the bouncy pop of “Do As I Say Not As I Do”, dedicated tonight to his mother in the audience, feels like it should be the soundtrack to a long hot summer. Forced to cut his set short, Harcourt finishes with “Until Tomorrow Then” before heading outside with his percussionist and trumpet player and playing a brief acoustic hits set, laughing and joking with the crowd and leading a chorus against the venue for closing the session down.

Final Flash, Joel Plaskett, Zeus and Jason Collett @ Canadian Blast Showcase:
Opening up proceedings where Montreal’s Final Flash, fresh from recording their debut album “Homeless” with Besnard Lakes frontman Jace Lasek. Proggy folk rock, done well, the band got proceedings off to a great start, double necked guitar and all. Next up was the second chance of the festival to catch Joel Plaskett. Twice nominated for a Polaris Prize, Plaskett is a master of the pop melody (don’t believe me? The guys one the pop category of the Great American Song Contest. 3 times). Playing mostly from his recent triple album (titled, cleverly, Three), he quickly enchants the audience with his quick wit and tales of growing up in Nova Scotia, and still not getting over not being picked for his high schools “spirited” performance of Grease. Stripped of backing singers and horn parts, Plaskett and fellow guitarist Peter Elkas improvise all the parts, from sweet falsetto to barber shop. If there is any justice it is only a matter of time before he attains the recognition here that he has in Canada. Rounding things off were the two for one deal that is Zeus and Jason Collett. Starting off life as Collett’s backing band, Last year saw the band step out from his shadows to release an album of their own. Cooing harmonies, instrument swapping, driving bass lines and fuzzy guitar solos abound as the band put on a power-pop masterclass in the sunshine, before toning things down a notch to close off proceedings backing up former Broken Social Scene man Collett.

Zeus:
Despite having seen them just hours before, Zeus merit a second mention. Having impressed greatly with their sunny power-pop in a small venue, something clicked up a gear when they moved up to the larger stage of the Corn Exchange for a support slot with Broken Social Scene. In the big room environment the band developed a swagger, mustachioed multi-instrumentalist Carlin Nicholson bring a touch of glam strut to the proceedings. With a glint in his eye, it was as if his facial furniture was tuning him in to the wavelength inhabited by Prince and Freddie Mercury, all be it dialed down a notch or three. Great stuff.

Broken Social Scene:
Having had what should have been a headline set shortened to just 40 minutes, Kevin Drew and his troupe came out of the gates hard and fast, bounding onstage and blasting through a defiantly rock setlist. Drew, stalking the stage in a beanie and throwing the occasional devil horn, came on like a man possessed, while besides him Brendan Canning high kicked his way through the set. Top marks as well for recruiting members of Brighton’s own Willkommen Collective to form part of the horn section.

Getting Sweaty at The Hope: Closing off the Saturday night proceedings, Vancouver’s The Pack A.D. took The Hope by storm. Dispensing with much of the bluesier side of their repertoire, their half hour set was more of a garage rock onslaught than a rock show, drummer Maya Miller pounding the drums while Becky Black careened around the stage conjuring riff after riff to the delight of the crowd. With queues out the door, by the time the set was over the band, the audience and even the walls were dripping with sweat. The way it should be.

The beauty of a festival of the size of the Great Escape is that you can move on from anything that you aren’t enjoying and go and see something better. That said, there were one or two disapointments over the weekend too, including a pitifully short 40 minute set length from Broken Social Scene (to their, and everyone else’s annoyance), lengthy queues for local favourites 80′s Matchbox B-Line Disaster and Esben and the Witch amongst others and no shows from The Walkmen, The Invisible and The Slits. Yet the positives by far outweigh the negatives, and with so many new bands (and other distractions) to choose from, if you are happy to avoid the “bigger names” in search of something a little different, it’s hard not to enjoy The Great Escape.