Great Escape 2007 day one

¶ The Great Escape has begun. The second year of ‘Europe’s leading new music festival’ has come to Brighton again, with even more bands and venues.

The Kissaway Trail

A good start to the festival in Audio, which I’m really starting to enjoy as a venue. The Kissaway Trail started out as Sigur Rós, moved into Arcade Fire, faded out a bit in the middle and finished on a Polyphonic Spree high. Great stuff – it’ll be interesting to hear if it translates well to record.

1990s

I received the album Cookies in the post on Monday, courtesy of the Rounder Records music club. I wasn’t entirely convinced at first, but they definitely sounded like they’d be a good live band. I wasn’t disappointed. 1990s flavour of Primal Scream rock n’ roll is infectious and can’t help but put a smile on your face. What’s more the bassist was particularly taken with the audience’s enthusiasm for the songs: “the best crowd we’ve ever played for”.

The plan was then to make our way from Audio to Concorde 2 in order to catch the Brazilian extravaganza that is CSS. Upon reaching the venue we encountering a huge and static queue, a 1-in 1-out scenario. Apparently people had been queuing since 5.30 to get in (it was now 9.30). So we made a swift u-turn and headed for the Pavilion Theatre.

Archie Bronson Outfit

It was Domino night at the Pavilion, and for that reason alone it would have been a good place to spend the evening. As it was we caught the final act. I saw Archie Bronson Outfit a few months ago in London with my bro’, but the sound was dreadful then. My bro was with me again this time, and it was a whole different scenario. The sound was excellent, the band were enjoying themselves (in their own way) and we had a stomping time nodding to the Morphine influenced battle-weary rock.