The Great Escape 2018 – Day Three review
By Day Three of Brighton’s excellent Great Escape Festival, limbs are getting achier, sleep deprivation starts to take its toll, as does the excess of booze and Boots’ Meal Deals. Thank goodness then, that an influx of Australians were on hand to help put a spring in our step and see us through to the conclusion of this year’s festivities.
As is traditional, the Aussie BBQ took place on the Saturday, this time at The Great Escape’s brand new beach site, which was the perfect venue for some sweet Australian sounds as the sun gently massaged much needed Vitamin D into our bodies and the sea twinkled prettily to the horizon.
An early highlight was a powerful turn from Melbourne’s Ecca Vandal, whose leaps between genres were as seamless as they were exhilarating. Her sounds lands somewhere between Hip Hop and full-on Punk Funkin Rock and her performance at TGE was as exciting and immediate as anything else we saw all weekend.
Next on the Dr Martens stage, Stella Donnelly (pictured, top) showcased her fantastic vocal and articulate storytelling, with Something You Said’s Song of 2017, Boys Will Be Boys, proving to be the standout moment of the entire festival. The true account of sexual assault and victim blaming was brutal, heartbreaking, powerful and as important a song as anyone would hear at TGE18. The Perth musician has got a huge future ahead of her, and one senses that she will continue to use her ever-growing platform to convey vital messages such as this. Seek her music out if you have yet to, because her songwriting deserves to be heard by everyone.
Wollongong’s Hockey Dad were next up, belting out excellent post-grunge rock which, due to the two-piece nature of the group, draws obvious comparisons to Royal Blood. There’s enough about them to surmise that really good things to come and the size of the crowd in attendance suggests they are well on their way to establishing a sizeable fanbase.
RVG‘s sound was drenched in 80s gothic rock, but it was Romy Vager’s (pictured, above) vocal delivery that really stood out. Her throaty, raw howl fiercely revealed emotions in a way that suggested she simply could not suppress them any longer. This was a very impressive, utterly real performance.
Changing tempo, Skegss were pretty much the perfect band to play on the beach, with their irrepressible brand of slacker garage-surf rock. Songs about going to the bottle-o and eating hash cakes were undeniably feel-good and prompted the first mosh pit of the day. Meanwhile, over in the Beach House, Melbourne’s G Flip demonstrated awesome musicianship, moving between instruments as she dropped infectious, energetic pop.
After a hugely successful Aussie BBQ, it was time to head back into town for the final leg of this three day carnival of new music. In One Church, Estonian pianist Kirka Karja played a new solo programme for the first time, to a disappointingly empty room, when she surely deserved a larger audience.
Next, Self Respect (pictured below) packed out iconic venue, The Prince Albert. This is the new project from Slow Club’s Rebecca Taylor, who was flanked by two backing vocalists as the trio busted out some sweet dance moves to 30 minutes of killer tunes. Taylor seemed genuinely surprised that so many people had come to see her, but if this gig is any indicator, she’ll be playing a venue much bigger than this if she returns to The Great Escape next year. This was certainly one of the best shows we saw at the festival.
Back at Jubilee Square, the festival’s main hub, Carnival Collective were the ideal band to wrap up proceedings. Boasting more members than it’s possible to count on your fingers and toes, the big band sent a joyous wave of ska, funk and even drum n bass over the crowd. It was a uproarious celebration of music without pretension, delivered by talented people who love their craft and was devoured by enthusiastic music fans. And if that’s not a perfect summation of The Great Escape as a whole, we don’t know what is.
With the ever-growing Alternative Escape making music accessible to everyone in the city, with the new Great Escape venue being a total success, and with a stellar line-up of emerging talent filling every nook and cranny, this year’s TGE will surely go down as one of the best ever. See you next year. We can’t wait.
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Read our review of Day One, featuring Alex The Astronaut, The Spook School and Say Su Me HERE.
Read our review of Day Two, featuring Sam Fender and The Alternative Escape HERE.
For information about The Great Escape go here: http://greatescapefestival.com/
Review and pictures by Bobby Townsend.
