The Great Escape: Recap

Another year done for The Great Escape, and what a year it was! The Miloco team were on the ground in Brighton for all three days scoping out the best new talent, meeting new people, and of course enjoying a free beer or two. We’ve tried to recall every detail of the three days to the best of our abilities, so here’s our recap of how the whole thing went down.

Day One:

We ‘escaped’ London Thursday morning and arrived in Brighton bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready for all the festival action. We took a few wrong turns but managed to get ourselves registered, picked up our passes/tote bags, and maybe a few too many bags of promotional pop chips. After experiencing a few panic-inducing minutes of the hotel reception trying to find our reservation at the Queen’s Hotel we then braved their luggage storage room, which looked like a game of suitcase Jenga gone wrong, and set off to start day one in earnest.

• Kicking it off (very) locally we travelled all the way downstairs at The Queen’s to catch French duo HER. The set was a fun mix of funk and R&B, but was slightly off-putting to be in a fully lit venue that had a distinct conference room vibe – not the most conducive environment for live music
• We then dove into an Aussie double header with Methyl Ethyl followed by Northeast Party House (pictured, above) at the Sounds Australia showcase at Komedia. The opposite to downstairs at Queen’s, Komedia is so dark that if you walk in there from the 3pm sunlight you will go blind for a few minutes. NEPH were definitely a highlight of the day with a fun, high energy set
• Taking full advantage of our delegate passes the team hit up the annual Audio Network party at Kooks bar. Our summary: great people, great music, great fish and chips and the best house red this side of Tuscany
• Down by the seaside Connie Constance wowed at The Arch, a voice as raw and beautiful as that should come with a warning
• Following an uncharacteristically civilised dinner, next up was singer songwriter Alec Benjamin at Patterns who played old favourites and tracks from his upcoming album
• Hightailing it to the other side of the action i the rain we hit up Cloves’ (pictured, below) set at Brighthelm. Unfortunately the venue was a bit too cavernous for the size of the audience, but her rich bluesy tones managed to reach to every corner of the room nonetheless

• Michael Kiwanuka at St George’s Church (pictured, top) was a definite highlight of the day. He treated us to crowd favourites and tracks from his album, which is out this Friday
• We tried (and failed) to get into Craig David’s TS5 set at Wagner Hall, trying every trick in the book to slip one over on the bouncer with his watertight guest list. Was worth a shot though, right?
• After all that it was back to The Queen’s to join what felt like every person in Brighton for a nightcap… one which ended at 4am with us trying to get to our rooms by stepping around people doing an impromptu yoga class in the hallway

Day Two:

We began Friday just a touch less fresh than the day before – nothing a burger and a bloody mary couldn’t fix! After some precision planning and gig coordination we donned our lanyards and obligatory sunglasses and began day two.

• First up was Miloco staff pick Declan McKenna’s acoustic set at the Vevo stage at Wagner Hall
• Ten Fé at Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar (best named-venue, hands down) was one of our highlights of the entire festival. So much so we doubled up on their shows
• Brighton native Louis Mattrs lured us back down to Coalition for his early evening set of smooth R&B. Funnily enough he actually used to work at that venue… but got fired (lol)
• Further along the shore at Patterns we caught one of Anna Of The North’s (pictured, below) many TGE sets. We can see why they needed to schedule multiple as the duo wowed with their dreamy synth pop from start to finish

• Going from one extreme to the other, next up were Bristol rockers, and Miloco staff pick, Idles (pictured, below). Four word review: high energy, high volume
• Friday was the key day for grime and urban artists at the beachfront venues and we managed to catch back to back sets by emcees Nadia Rose & Yungen at Shooshh who got the crowd jumping
• Next up (and next door) was electronic producer Salute at The Arch. We were already a fan of his tunes, but his live set impressed with the addition of live bass and percussion from band members Craig & Sam. It was a great set that packed out the venue
• We had a lot of fun speaking like Germans every time we said we were going to HAUS at Sticky Mike’s. Novelty aside we really enjoyed the set from the homegrown indie five-piece
• Stopping via Spiegeltent for yet another bloody mary pick-me-up we tried in vain to see Black Honey (followed by Eagulls) at Horatio’s. They inexplicably closed the pier leaving a crowd of annoyed would-be audience members shaking their fists at security. At one point even the band were barred and had to convince the bouncer they were, in fact, supposed to be on stage in a few moments
• To wrap up the night we checked out Transgressive act and hotly tipped teenage duo Let’s Eat Grandma at Latest Music Bar for their 1am slot, which was surely past their bedtime. It was…interesting and at one point featured a recorder and the two girls playing some kind of schoolyard clapping game?
• Capping off the night it was back to The Queen’s lobby once more to squeeze past all the delegates trying to network and hand out business cards with a drink in each hand

Day Three:

“Okay last day, we can do this,” we woke up chanting internally, secretly wondering if we could possibly eat one more piece of free pizza or drink one more G&T. The Great Escape is a marathon, not a sprint after all, and this is what we’d been training for.

• Following a superb eggs benedict to kick off the day right, we plunged back into the midday darkness at Komedia for The Big Moon. An absolute crowd favourite, these girls were just so good. It’s not easy to be one of the first slots of the last day when hangovers are raging and attention spans are waning. Their set was fun, high energy and included an excellent rendition of Madonna’s ‘Beautiful Stranger’ from the Austin Power’s soundtrack
• Another Miloco staff pick, and fans of recording in The Pool, The HUNNA were next up at Brighthelm. It’s very obvious to us now why these guys have such an avid fanbase worldwide
• Not realising exactly how far away Concordia 2 was we journeyed down to the Aussie BBQ for some snags and Fosters (really) where we managed to catch The Rubens and Gang Of Youths (pictured, below). Sidetone: Gang Of Youths lead singer Dave has some killer moves. We’re talking Beyoncé ‘Single Ladies’ video moves, bravo.

• Keeping in the Antipodean theme, a few of the team managed to score tickets to Temper Trap’s (pictured, below) Amazon Prime Front Row Live secret show at The Old Market. They played a few classics, the new singles and tested out some unreleased tracks from their upcoming album, which got great response from the crowd
• Next up was German-born, LA-based singer songwriter Bibi Bourelly at The Arch. She’s got the smoky tone of Amy Winehouse with more of an R&B vibe and a hell of a lot of attitude. That attitude was put to good use when she wrote Rihanna’s ‘B*tch Better Have My Money’
• Walking the whole 20 metres or so to Coalition next door we caught back-t0-back sets from Arydn and Liss, the latter of which was a clear favourite with their brand of R&B, disco-y pop
• Last up for the day was back to the Vevo sponsored Wagner Hall for Scottish songstress Kloe. You only have to hear one song to understand the outrageous lengths it took to actually get in the venue (to be honest it was easier to watch from the beer garden outside, which had some unsurprisingly impressive AV from the Vevo folks)

With all the gigs, meetings and seminars done and dusted it was finally time to let our hair down, which to be honest we’d been doing already anyway. By this time the crowds had thinned, the floor in the bar at The Queen’s was like walking on duct tape, and the expense receipts were climbing higher so we thought it might be time to call it a night.

Ultimately it was yet another great year of the festival, superbly run by The Great Escape team and all the venue staff. Congratulations to every artist that played both on the main bill and at The Alternative Escape. Bring on The Great Escape 2017 – we’ll see you there!

If you’re an artists that payed at The Great or Alternative Escapes, check out our special artist offer on studio bookings here.