And so to the final day of the Great Escape. For the first time we end up unable to see one of the bands we wanted to - Black Mountain; there is a disappointment - School of Language; a nice surprise appearance from some old friends - Shortwave Set; a deafening and storming Pressure Point closing night; and a brief peep at one of the most enthusiastic bands of the festival - Crystal Castles.
We also have a review of day one, and a review of day two.
19:15 School of Language @ The Old Market
I actually liked School of Language before this gig, but this really put me off them. The songs sounded nothing like they do on record, they managed to turn some intricate angular and very clever music into a dull tuneless dirge. They resembled a bad indie boy band rather than a group of quality musicians (this a spin off from the rather well respected Field Music). Perhaps the problem is they are a new live band, and they simply don’t have enough people on stage to replicate the album, perhaps the sound was wrong, or perhaps they are just crap. Either way, a huge disappointment and all I spoke to agreed.
www.myspace.com/schooloflanguage
20:15 Lightspeed Champion @ The Old Market
Next up thankfully was Lightspeed Champion. Just like School of Language, he too created a totally different sound to the album. Whereas that features violins and acoustic guitar along with a host of other instruments to create a Bright Eyes-like masterpiece, tonight he played dirty fast and heavy versions of all his songs on one electric guitar with the effects pedal set to hard rock.
All the songs were played without a pause as one continuous set, and he ended with a cover of Weezer, almost as if he were afraid that there would be no applause for him on his own. There was no problem; I found the performance to be perfect, unlike School of Language the difference to the album was sufficient to make us feel we were getting an exclusive rare performance rather than being something simply played badly. Not everyone agreed though, people who didn’t know the album were underwhelmed and I imagine there will have been some disappointment.
This was one of 2 gigs Lightspeed Champion played tonight, I’d be interested to hear if the other one was set up any differently - comment if you were there.
Here’s a video from tonight’s gig:
(Lightspeed Champion - Tell Me What It’s Worth live at Old Market, Hove)
www.myspace.com/lightspeedchampion
21:20 Shortwave Set @ The Providence
I had fully expected to watch Fujiya and Miyagi and Black Mountain over at the Old Market after Lightspeed Champion, but during the gig I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen in around 4 years who was heading over the road to catch The Shortwave Set. I’m a fan of theirs, I’ve seen them about 4 times over the years and knowing the new album was produced by Dangermouse of Gnarls Barkley I popped over to see where this new direction had taken them.
Pop seems to be the order of the day now - a little less weird and original than their last album, more mainstream and probably catchier. Not sure if this is a good thing, but it certainly captivated the crowd, even the locals in the pub who paid a pound for entry generally kept quiet and seemed to tolerate the band if not get into them fully. Note also the unusual costume worn by the bass player, I’m sure he was wearing trousers last time I saw them.
www.myspace.com/theshortwaveset
22:15 Little Barrie @ The Providence
After The Shortwave Set we dashed back to the Old Market to catch the prog rock 70’s throwback outfit Black Mountain. Unfortunately on arrival the queue was 60 strong and the band had started so we headed back to The Providence to catch a band I first saw about 5 years ago at my uni. We really shouldn’t have bothered, I would have preffered to queue. Rob disliked them so much he was physically sick (might have been the packet(!??!) of Cockles he ate earlier though), hence no photos of this one. Appalling dull cod-rock, but - and this is key - they seemed to have a lot of fans in the crowd who were all loving it, so each to their own I suppose.
23:00 What to do next?
Things turned out OK in the end. After deciding to walk out of Little Barrie we tried to get back into the Old Market. There was no queue and people kept leaving but frustratingly the management had decided to effectively close the venue and not allow anyone else in, despite there being 20 mins left of The Black Mountain performance. If you ask me, this is a bad attitude to take, and the Old Market has gone way down in my estimations. Perhaps they did it to get rid of the queue and keep the noise down, I don’t know. They certainly didn’t want us to wait for our friends outside the venue, but seconds later the friends emerged so all was well again.
We headed for the Barfly to see Crystal Castles but the queue there was several hundred strong. The band weren’t even on til 2 and I didn’t think much of the support The Rascals. We tried the Spiegeltent, but that was empty and seemed to be closing down. Finally we settled on The Pressure Point and waited at the front of a 45 min queue, always the way with that place.
00:45 Flykkiller @ The Pressure Point
Flykkiller were described as sounding like early Massive Attack and got a 5/5 album review in Mixmag. This sounded promising, and whilst they weren’t a 5/5 they were certainly pretty pumping. Live dance music, a bit like Pendulum and indeed Massive Attack is how I would describe them.
The female lead singer seems to have taken some fashion tips from Alison Goldfrapp and made the look her own, she cuts an imposing and very powerful figure on stage. She sounds more like Tricky vocalist and solo artist Martina Topley Bird.
The music didn’t really get me til the last song sadly, but when it did it was a great feeling and took me back to the early 00’s DJ scene. I feel dance music is making a come back but in a strictly live format.
Sadly, this gig was so loud it deafened me, must buy earplugs. Still I soldiered on.
01:30 Times New Viking @ The Pressure Point
I had never heard of the next band, Times New Viking, but a huge number of people from some great areas of the Brighton music scene showed up. These included the guys from Resident Records and the lead singer of another festival band 4 or 5 Magicians who said they were the best thing on all weekend (except his band of course) - ‘like the best parts of Moldy Peaches, Sonic Youth, Pavement and The Beatles’ apparently. Perhaps you have to know the songs. I liked what I heard - a punky cachophany of noise peppered with unintelligible female lyrics - but I couldn’t make much out. Legends it would seem, but perhaps a little impenetrable to the casual listener.
www.myspace.com/timesnewviking
02:10 Crystal Castles @ The Barfly
Toronto band Crystal Castles have a huge amount of hype surrounding them right now. They make digital music, with Game Boy-sounding effects, and people either love them or despise them. I had to queue for 20 mins to see the second half of their set, and in that time a lot of people tried to get in, but very few came out. When I got inside I discovered why - they are the most enthusiastic live band I’ve ever seen. Well, Alice Glass the singer is anyway, her partner and the drummer seem to hide away at the back.
As you will see from this video I took, Alice spent the night performing on top of the crowd, who were going crazy, writhing back and forth like a giant human snake being ridden by this tiny insane woman. Strobes were constant and the whole thing looked like some demented music video. The music suffered a little though, vocals weren’t especially clear and were often entirely abandoned, but if you could see, this was an unmissable experience.
(Crystal Castles live at the Brighton Barfly)
A perfect end to a great festival.
www.myspace.com/crystalcastles
If you haven’t already don’t forget to check out our review of day one for reviews of Bon Iver and Okkervil River amongst others and the review of day two with Yeasayer, Broken Records and the Future Folk night at the Duke of York’s.
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