Great Escape 2014 – Day 3

11 May, 2014

Sometimes you have one of these days where you appear to be destined to see dross or changeovers. It’s one of the risks go taking the approach of bouncing around. I wanted to try some of the other venues which meant they were a little bit more dispersed and unfortunately I just seemed to catch changeovers for most of the afternoon. The bands I did catch simply didn’t register or where actually rubbish.

Thankfully my mood was lightened late afternoon when I stumbled upon a line-up change at the Tube, Kill Moon who played an excellent set helped by the fantastic venue. (It really is a tiny tube in the Brighton sea wall)

After that things improved with an ‘off festival’ show featuring The Physics House Band, Slow Club and the Amazing Snakeheads, a band I failed to catch due to the long queues outside of the tiny Hope the night before.

The evening was closed off with some ‘knowns’, White Lung, a disappointing Mazes, an interesting performance from Arc Iris, a band who clearly listened to too much Frank Zappa and watching too many Yes performances. Finally my festival closed with Trans.

I managed to catch:

Josh Flowers and the Wild – great performance in the challenging Hub Tent

Hollie Cook – great voice

Gallery Circus – Energetic performance but the music didn’t work for me

Audience Killers – didn’t like the lead singer’s voice

Boy Jumps Ship – skater rock of the Biffy Clyro book of music. Exactly!

Kill Moon – great performance

The Physics House Band – sound like a complex equation imagined in music.

Slow Club – good performance, though fairly bland

Amazing Snakeheads – great live

Kieran Leonard – hard to judge. Singing unaided in a museum

Charlie Cunningham – as above

HSY – lots of energy and shouting. Great if you like that sort of thing. Personally not my cup of tea.

White Lung – not as pissed of as the first time I saw them, but still good.

Mazes – disappointed. Too much new material that doesn’t sound as interesting as their earlier material

Arc Iris – lots of really talents musicians living out the 1970s prog scene through the filter of Frank Zappa. Definitely a marmite band. I quiet enjoyed it. But I won’t rush out to see them again