The Great Escape - Brighton - 15-17/5/08
4/5
By: Jim Carroll
Brighton's Great Escape festival - that heady weekend that harkens the dawn of English summer festival season in earnest; and the coast-side scenesters open their borders to all and sundry. Oddly, the festival has been described as the English alternative to South by SouthWest. While it is true insomuch that a town is swamped by a plethora of bands (from hotly buzzed word of mouth up-and-comers to established indie scene champs), this is where the comparison ends. Perhaps because The Great Escape is SO quintessentially English - right down to the pebbly beach, questionably safe pier fairground rides and bawdy postcards. It is this that makes it idiosyncratic and quaint - the whole thing feels like one giant alternative music beano; and everyone is invited.
Even though the opening day of proceedings seems to coincide with the end of the blazing early May sunshine, a giddy mixture of over-excitement and lack of respectable routine meant that I arrived in Brighton alone in early afternoon. Fortunately, I hear word of Official Secrets Act playing an all ages show, followed by a 'Q and A' session with the band. This left me with just enough time to ponder the folly of holding a show for under 16s when most of the target demographic should still be in school. Suitably perplexed and with brow furrowed I arrive at the Water Margin and sure enough not many of the audience seem to be playing hooky. Nevertheless, the venue was rammed regardless. Kitted out as if members of the English gentry had acquired keys to the wardrobe on the Miami Vice set, OSA (despite a few unfortunate technical gremlins) did not disappoint. All dapper and daggering cheekbones it was jerking and frenetic from the off; an invigorating mix of Wire, Talking Heads and the Libertines. Accessible but erudite indie-pop, with just a hint of consciously anglicised social commentary to keep any budding beard stroking Melvyn Braggs happy. Unlike the triumphant show however, the Q and A is a massive disappointment, as I appear to be the only one tempted by the offer of quizzing the band. But I had been promised a forum, and a forum was what I was going to get; and as self styled quiz master I manage to winkle out a few morsels - primarily that OSA's bassist Lawrence is somewhat of a pedant when it comes to the REM discography.
Early evening and finally with fellow revellers in tow the festival began to enter full swing, and approaching the Pavilion Theatre we come across a sight that would become all too familiar over the next three days. Snaking its way around the building and over the horizon was a queue that was so long and unruly it resembled the apocalyptic traffic jam from Goddard's Week End. It's a sad fact of the Great Escape (as with all the multi venue town usurping festivals of this nature) that more people seemed to have descended upon Brighton than could fit in the venues. So even with the most precise of planning, without an expensive Delegate's Pass that brings queue jumping privileges you will not be able to see all the bands you want to see. And you will be queuing - A LOT.
Luckily, there are so many great bands playing that the queuing issue remains slightly disgruntling as opposed to inducing full blown apoplexy - and Sunset Rubdown are one such example. The baby of Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade and (occasionally) Frog Eyes fame, it is yet another example of the seemingly self perpetuating (and almost incestuous) Montreal DIY scene. Late 70s early 80s rocking guitar and piano riffs, reminiscent of a tart Roxy Music, all the while augmented by Krug's Berlin era Bowie intonations. Ascending and occasionally atonal piano riffs battled back and forth in an uneasy but hypnotic disharmony with layered guitars reminiscent of a spacey Paperchase - just with melodic grooving pop songs. A few more shows like this and people will be referring to Wolf Parade as the side project and not vice versa.
More by luck than design, and in a desperate search for a vendor in Brighton still selling drink, we stumbled into the Brighton Barfly in the early hours of Friday morning for Club NME to discover that Ting Tings, due to a number of guitar glitches, were only just taking to the stage. Hey, I did not say it was good luck. Theirs is a brand of obnoxious indie electro pop; something like a new Daphne and Celeste that the NME has arbitrarily deigned to be cool. Bouncing on to the stage in the full throes of celebration at the imminent news that they were about to dislodge Madonna from the No. 1 spot, they knocked out a completely anodyne set- replete with contrived stage posturing such as Katie White pounding on a bass drum with an enormous drumstick. With so much innovative, arresting and challenging music available over the course of the weekend, Ting Tings just felt strangely anomalous.
The nature of the Great Escape seemingly divides people into two factions. On the one hand you have the fastidious souls armed with timetables and text messaging services, with their itineraries prepared with military precision. And then there is the second camp to which I pledged my allegiances to - the ad hoc play it by ear club, who preferred to drift like flotsam on the waves of the Brighton sea. And so it happened that whilst nursing a hangover and going for an afternoon stroll I noticed a throng of people standing transfixed under the balcony of a theatre. As I got closer to witness the commotion I saw the familiar shock of bleached blonde hair - Mr. Hudson armed with acoustic guitar. It was only upon closer inspection as I heard the familiar rhapsody of a jazz saxophone that I realised that Hudson had Soweto Kinch in tow. It all totalled to that most rare of experiences; a truly genre straddling amalgam incorporating free jazz, hip hop and folky acoustica. Hudson's straining vocals - somewhere between Chet Baker and Sting - married to the whole spectrum of Kinch's talents as he shifted effortlessly from rapping, to human beat box to saxophone. And this was literally an all ages show. . To my right two toddlers (with impossibly cool indie haircuts) were dancing with the awkward gait that only young children seem to posses; whilst to my left a septuagenarian who is probably the only man taking in the Great Escape who remembers the Golden Age of Jazz was whooping furiously. Sedate but enthralling, it was the perfect start to ease me in to the second day's proceedings.
After a brief sojourn skimming stones on the beach, it was a short seaside stroll along the seafront to Digital - a club abounding with vainglorious boasts about having the largest sound system of the United Kingdom. With this fact then firmly emblazoned upon my consciousness I couldn't help but think that there would be very little wanted more to hear booming from that behemoth of a system than some party hip hop. Luckily, in Canada's Cadence Weapon we had probably the finest exponent of it that you can probably find anywhere right about now. Fuck bling, guns and misogyny; this harks back to the early days hip hop. In other words, it is wry, life affirming, and most of all FUN. Only breaking from his rhymes to raise his arms and conduct the crowd's adoration for DJ Weez-L's awe inspiring skills on the ones and twos; even using his accidentally dislodged shoe as a improvised baton, Cadence Weapon had the crowd at his whim from the off. 'House Music' married punishing electro with sprawling rapping to excellent effect. Suitably erudite for a former journalist, set highlight 'Real Estate' was a lament to the lure of the almighty dollar, whilst being so infectiously catchy the Rockfeedback boys still bellowing it drunkenly through the streets of Brighton 24 hours later. We apologise for that - but not too much.
The Hold Steady are what they are - a bunch of middle aged men devoid of affectations who love playing riff laden classic rock and roll and worship The Boss.. They are not claiming to be reinventing the wheel. In fact if anything, they are scholars of the Dummies guide to wheel making. But while sometimes you want knowing glances, high brow self validating recognition of musical and artistic invention, sometimes you just want to have a good time listening to good old fashioned balls to the wall rock. And whilst seeing the odds of Bruce making a shock appearance during the course of the weekend were slim to none, the Brooklyn five piece seemed to fit the bill. The tunes are not only similar, but front man Craig Finn even adopts some of Bruce's stage mannerisms. A few songs in however, you simply stop caring and just start having fun; and as me and my friend desperately danced a la the Bruce and Courtney in the Dancing in the Dark video, (complete with twirling arms and finger clicks) it was impossible to argue that The Hold Steady had not put on an entertaining show.
Another hangover induced malaise, coupled with an overwhelming guilt at constantly waltzing past the poor queuing masses huddled in the cold outside the venues of Brighton meant a change of tack for the final day. Instead of hurling around Brighton in a haphazard fashion we instead decided to set up camp on the final Saturday. After careful deliberation, we decided that the Honeyclub would probably be our best bet. Initially, this appears to be a gross miscalculation. Firstly, much to our chagrin, we discover that Munch Munch were not playing. Then, to compound the let-down, the bar staff took dilly dallying to uncharted levels - resulting in half hour long trips to the bar. Finally, as a final insult, Semifinalists took to the stage. Painfully cool (or is that just painful?), thehipster duo took to the stage prancing around like an East London Wham. Armed with backing tracks playing simplistic straight ahead drum and bass lines beats, coupled with intermittent and interchanging trashy trebly guitars and Casio keyboards from the duo, it became quickly apparent that Semifinalists will never grace the final stages of any competition worth winning.
After that, it was a time for Buttonhead. And just as Semifinalists seemed to be so painfully contrived, the South London 5 piece delivered wonderful ramshackle art rock with abandon. One part bonkers, one part brilliant; it was eccentric and playful, almost bordering on the unhinged. With slightly psychedelic hints around the edges, full of fun and ascending vocals like Mew if they had been born south of the Thames. The divers instrument changes and the careening between genres meant that Buttonhead pass more than a passing resemblance to a boho Deerhoof, but that surely can not be a bad thing?.
The evening and the weekend drew to its conclusion as the Honeyclub started to creak with the masses teeming in to see the headlining act. This is the show that heralds Mystery Jets' transformation from post prog heroes to nu-new romantic indie pop heroes. 'Flakes' starts touching enough to achieve simpatico with every individual in the place - before exploding into a soaring chorus that could envelop a venue ten times the size with no difficulty. New single 'Two Doors Down' is the highlight, bringing together the pop sensibilities of The Cure and Haircut 100. It is undauntedly awesome pop. As we took it in, having ingested three days worth of fresh sea air, sunshine, booze and good music, Mystery Jets proved a fitting finale to an excellent weekend.
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