Brighton gig listings - upcoming gigs and concerts from top quality bands and artists playing in Brighton. We also provide links to tickets. Bookmark it and come back - updates every Monday or when we hear of new dates. We focus on indie, Americana and folk, the sort of bands we review. This is not a complete listing (that gets too crowded), more a recommendation of what to go and see, although if they are critically acclaimed they will be listed here.

Touring bands playing Brighton

Thu 15th July - Battles (myspace)

Concorde - SOLD OUT

A little like Animal Collective - but even crazier. I saw this band at Field Day last year and they are primarily a noise band live. Excellent stuff but an acquired taste.

Atlas

Mon 21st July - World / Inferno Friendship Society

Albert - Tickets from Resident Records (01273 606312) for £7.00

Cabaret Punk from Brooklyn, this band has over the years featured members of Dexy’s Midnight Runners, The Hold Steady and a host of other bands. Performing since 1996 the band have a huge live following - I heard about this gig from a number of different people about the town who recommended them to me. Lookig like something from the Coney Island Freak Show the band feature 4 horns, 2 guitars and 2 drummers and should be an absolute riot.

Wed 23rd July - Lightspeed Champion

Concorde - Doors 8:00 - Tickets from Resident Records (01273 606312) for £11.00 or buy now online from Ticketweb for £11.20 if you collect on the door

Solo project for Dev from the Test-Icicles, this is nothing like that, more country/folk than screamo. Sounds a lot like Bright Eyes, the album was even produced by Bright Eyes regular Mike Moggis. Saw him perform alone at The Great Escape and everyone was very impressed, with a full band (assuming he has one - he normally does) this should be umissable.

Midnight Sunrise video

Sat 16th August - Loop 2008 - 1 day festival in Victoria Gardens

Victoria Gardens - 12 to 10 - Tickets from Resident Records (01273 606312) for £27.00, buy online from Music Glue for £27.50

This is the second ever Loop festival. Last years was a great day out with loads of bands and other digital shenanigans over in the adjacent university. The only downsides were the crowding in the tents, you have to get inside places early or they (naturally) fill up.

Artists confirmed include Four Tet, New Young Pony Club, These New Puritans, Adem, Caribou and The Shoes. Hopefully a few more will confirm nearer the time - I’ll keep you updated.

Here’s a report from last years festival feat Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip:

Thu 21st - Tue 26th August - Beachdown Festival

Devils Dyke - Tickets from Resident Records (01273 606312) or online from the festival site for £85.00

The first ever Beachdown Festival! A new local festival on Devil’s Dyke, with camping from Thurs to Tues and music from noon on the Friday to 9PM on the Monday. Capacity is only 10,000 which should make this a nice little festival, with buses from Brighton to ensure easy access (and a quick trip home if its raining).

Artists confirmed include Magic Numbers, Reverend and the Makers, Jose Gonzalez and Maccabees as well as a few good bands such as De La Soul, Gogol Bordello, Nouvelle Vague, Alabama 3, Horace Andy, Lightspeed Champion and The Brakes. Dance acts include Hercules and Love Affair, Freak Power (Fatboy Slim’s previous name..hmm) and Mr Scruff, plus loads of local bands and DJ’s.

Get some friends and get up there, its not just about the music, it should be a great bank holiday weekend, and an excellent alternative to Reading.

Sun 24th August - Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks

Komedia - Doors 8:30 - Cheapest tickets from Komedia box office for £13.50, or online from The Komedia site for £14.00.

The godfather of indie plays Brighton! An association with this man is normally enough to get an instant mention in these pages, so this is obviously an unmissable gig. The founding member of Pavement and now playing with his new band Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks. Expect to hear lots from ‘Real Emotional Trash’ the ‘difficult’ new album.

Gardenia from Real Emotional Trash (fan video)

Tue 26th August - Gutter Twins

Komedia - Tickets from Resident Records (01273 606312) for £17.00, buy online from the Komedia or pop in to their box office for £16.00

If you like heavy rock or blues you won’t want to miss this collabaration between Mark Lanegan (Screaming Tree’s and QOTSA) and Greg Dulli (lead singer of the Backbeat Band - members included Dave Grohl, Mike Mills of REM and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth). Melodic dark bluesy rock, for fans of all the aforementioned bands. It doesn’t get much cooler than this.

Idle Hands, live from the Letterman Show

Wed 10th Sept - Sun Kill Moon / Mark Kozelek

Concorde - Tickets from Resident Records (01273 606312) for £13.00

Mark Kozelek is the front man of Sun Kill Moon and Red House Painters, an occasional actor (he was in Almost Famous and Vanilla Sky), and has worked with members of Low on his side project Retribution Gospel Choir. He’s supposed to be amazing live - one of our occasional writers Graham saw him and was very impressed.

Here’s a track from SXSW.

Fri 12th Sept - The Chap

Freebutt - Tickets from Resident Records (01273 606312) for £7.50 or buy online from Ticketmaster for a whopping £11.20 - if you collect on the door!

The Chap are one of the tightest and most exciting live bands I have ever seen - and hardly anyones heard of them! This is good news - small venues, great value, and a band that are playing music that’s becoming more and more trendy by the day, yet they still keep the pricks at bay. Here’s a review from last time they played Brighton.

Ethnic Kids Live

Tue 16th Sept - Crystal Castles

Concorde - Tickets from Resident Records (01273 606312) for £11.00, buy online from ticketweb for £12.25 on the door

At the recent Great Escape festival electronic duo Crystal Castles were hailed by many as one of the highlights - read our review and see footage. The singer spent most of the gig crawling over the heads of the audience and although the sound suffered slightly you won’t find a performance as involved as this from many electronic acts. The music is great too, catchy gameboy infused electro-pop. That said, some people can’t stand them and consider the to be absolute toss live, they certainly divide opinions.

Here they are on Skins.

Wed 29th Oct - Lambchop

St Georges Church - Tickets from Resident Records (01273 606312) for £17.00, or online from ticketweb from £16.50

Unmissable - one the greatest live bands in one of the best venues in the country. Lambchop front man Kurt Wagner played a superb solo gig at The Duke of Yorks recently - review here. With a full band his weathered voice is expanded with beautiful instrumentals and huge soundscapes. For fans of Americana, Calexico, Tom Waits, smoky jazz and more.

Up with people

Tue 11th Nov - Mercury Rev

Corn Exchange - Tickets from Resident Records (01273 606312) for £17.00, or online from ticketweb from £17.65

Mercury Rev are a classic American indie band who create shimmering orchestral pop epics. I love this band, have seen them many times and never been disappointed. Although their recent albums haven’t quite compared to their early releases, they have a new one coming out that I have yet to hear and seeing them live is a no-brainer.

The Dark is Rising live

Wed 12th Nov - Okkervil River

Concorde - Tickets from Resident Records (01273 606312) for £12.50, buy online from ticketweb for £13.94 if you collect on the door.

We reviewed Okkervil River as part of the Great Escape review - “Okkervil River have been around for over a decade and are a highly respected live act in the US. Tonight was no exception, and although their music is pretty standard stuff, live they have everything down to a fine art.” Without doubt one of the highlights of the festival and definitely worth catching.

Local Bands in Brighton

Sometimes people email me requesting I list their gigs. If I think the bands sound interesting I’ll list them here; if not I won’t. I won’t be providing full listings, but these are the ones I’ve checked out and think they might be worth investigating for a taste of something local at a slightly lower price.

If you want to be considered, send me a mail kirby [at] mark [dot] gmail [dot] com.

More gigs

Download a full list of gigs from Resident Records.

Also check the full listings for The Freebutt and The Brighton Dome, as they sometimes have gigs which don’t appear in Resident’s listings.

There are two fantastic promoters who have their own sites as well, and although normally all their gigs are listed in the Resident listings they are worth checking out - The Gilded Palace of Sin for Americana and Melting Vinyl for a mixture of quality gigs.

Finally there’s Lout Promotions who put on a mix of things and of course The Brighton Centre with all the big (read: crap) gigs such as Michael Bolton, The Flaming Lips did play here once though.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Gig Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.