WATCH: Bands In Transit @ The Great Escape – Part 3: Dog Is Dead, Frankie & The Heartstrings, Ed Sheeran, Ben Howard, Tribes and Brother
By: Thomas Hannan
[PIC: FRANKIE & THE HEARTSTRINGS WITH JOHN KENNEDY @ BANDS IN TRANSIT - COPYRIGHT SOL ARCHER]
This week’s instalment of Bands In Transit has us back on the Brighton coast at The Great Escape festival, reminiscing about just how entertained we all were by the likes of everyone from Ed Sheeran to Dog Is Dead in the Sussex sunshine. Performed as ever from out of the back of our van, there’s now a whole archive of these could-not-be-more-intimate sessions up on bandsintransit.com – including the likes of Guillemots and The Joy Formidable – but for now, here’s this week’s additions.
To kick things off we have the excellent Dog Is Dead, a justifiably hotly-tipped new band who won our hearts with the unassuming gorgeousness of songs like ‘Teenage Daughter’ and their candid discussions of life on the road with Jen Long.
One of the most heartening success stories in British indie rock in recent times, the thoroughly endearing Frankie & The Heartstrings were next to visit the van, chatting to John Kennedy about their experiences this year and delivering this sumptuous take on ‘I Want You Back’.
Ed Sheeran gave us a run through of ‘The A-Team’ on Bands In Transit last week, and lo and behold currently finds himself at number 3 in the UK singles charts. Here, he discusses his rise and rise with John Kennedy.
A Totnes-based singer songwriter with shades of Nick Drake and Jack Johnson, Ben Howard has seen his devoted fanbase grow rapidly from its origins in the South West to include lovers of intelligent folk music the whole country over. Here are a few reasons why.
Tribes might be more used to making a decidedly louder racket than the one they treated Bands In Transit to, but this fine acoustic rendition of ‘We Were Children’ shows that the song-craft underneath the clamour is of the highest order.
To close, we’ve a performance from a band whose name hasn’t left the lips of the music press since it started doing the rounds on the ‘ones to watch’ lists at the beginning of this year – the unshakable swagger of none other than Brother, performing ‘Darling Buds of May’.
Artists in this article: Tribes, Frankie and the Heartstrings, Dog Is Dead