Kicking off last Thursday in (sometimes) sunny Brighton, The Alternative Escape certainly celebrated the very best of new music with a stellar showcase from five exciting and upcoming LCoM alumni acts: Freya Roy; PEAKES; Brooders; VAUGHAN and Talkboy.
Combining festival fun with some serious one day north-south road trips and fuelled on fish and chips, the five Leeds acts offered up a diverse schedule of sets, delivering effortlessly vibrant and uniquely executed new music to make waves on the South coast.
The five acts performed the first Thursday afternoon lineup of the festival in venue, Door 77, a stones throw from the beach and characteristically reminiscent of Brighton's famously electric nightlife.
TGE sees hundreds of industry know-hows flocking to the seaside streets for some sun, sea and music at the festival branded the UK's answer to SXSW. A staple in the music lovers diary, we were down there to suss out the best of the festival.
First on the LCoM bill was Freya Roy who seduced the lunchtime crowd with a stripped-back solo electro-acoustic set, featuring a number of tracks from her newly released debut-album 'AHLKE'. The neo-soul, Jazz vibes provided a cushion of soft sonority for those musos up early for this intimate set.
Freya, who has been touring since April, was dashing straight off to Manchester on the next leg of her UK tour. Whilst waiting for the train she said, "I love Brighton, it's great to be back to play at the festival - I haven't released anything in five years so its really nice to have something out that I'm really happy with and that is getting such a positive response".
What's most exciting about The Great Escape festival is the sheer amount of music taking place across the city. There's a persistent rumbling hum across this bustling and free-spirited urban coast, with music pouring out of every bar and venue, riding the sea breeze through the artist-crowded streets.
Next up was PEAKES: the bewitching alt-pop three piece with raw, personal narratives attuned to their ambient electronics.
For Molly Puckering, singer and front-woman, it was a Home Town gig and she commented afterwards, "This is our first gig in Brighton which seems a bit mad, but I grew up here so it's really nice to be back.
We've just released our latest EP, ‘Absent In Person’ on the 26 April - it feels really good to have new music out. We're really happy with these three songs which we recorded with the same producer Steph Marziana in London - it's really exciting and we can't wait to start gigging it".
PEAKES mentioned, "We've always wanted to come to The Great Escape - it's known for being a new-music festival and when we were at uni we wanted to go every year. Unfortunately it always clashed with exams, so this actually feels really great to be here and be playing our first show'.
Boasting new music by the bucket-and-spade-load, there's so much more going on than you could possibly make time to see in three days; there's a real sense you could stumble across something truly special wandering into any number of the city's musical hideouts. Our LCoM alumni sets unsurprisingly attracted such praises from curious, friendly 'festival'ers' chancing upon Door 77.
The mid-way slot went to Brooders, a Psycho grunge group, layering up their chaotic melodies with relentlessly menacing riffs to equal their formidable on-stage presence. A true melting pot of loud, exciting, punked-up energy.
Also a first time in Brighton for the Brooders lads, they'd been exploring the city. "We all nearly got engulfed by waves on the beach - it was exciting". Not too perturbed, they commented, "It's a really cool city, nice venues, good atmosphere" and mentioned, "We've got a new single coming out called, 'More'. It will be good, angry and aggressive".
In addition to the array of music-making across the festival, the city becomes a one-week industry hothouse for creatives, hosting informative panels, debates and conferences that probe some of the current topics and challenges of working in music today.
The festival happens across over 30 walk-able venues and features 500 emerging artists who travel from all over the world to be in Brighton. Beautifully compact and with Spotlight Shows, secret gigs and club nights, The Alternate Escape lets you discover new favourite artists before they head to the big stage.
The penultimate act was VAUGHAN. Fresh off the release of his new single 'I AM', which narrates his struggle with sexual repression and road of self-discovery, his set channelled a real heartening ambience and was a poignant celebration of his artistic journey to date but still kept the fun; compelling for the ears and warming for the heart. Tom said, "Having spent a lot of my childhood in Brighton; it was unforgettable to play my first show there at The Great Escape. We piled a lot of surprises into my set and it was so nice to work with my team to make the shows a lot of fun. I loved being around so many of my friends and colleagues at the festival and seeing them play and do their thing. It's great to support each other and see kind people doing well."
Alongside our official showcase, we caught some other lovely Leeds College of Music groups who were entertaining the seaside festival-goers, including Sunflower Thieves playing at North Laines Brewhouse and Tamzene at One Church, topping off the line-up of northern trailblazers at TGE.
Talkboy perfectly concluded the showcase with a helping of irresistible playful indie-rock and copious amounts of tangible onstage synergy.
The Leeds based six piece are already surrounded by a buzz of excitement, having had numerous singles featured on Radio 1's indie show with Jack Saunders in recent weeks. The group are set to continue their surge of success on the festival circuit this summer, playing Long division, Ynot and Bluedot to name a few.
Following their awesome set, Talkboy announced, "Other than the chip shop not having gravy (which is outrageous) we've had a fabulous time".
Talking music, they said, "This EP has been a really long time in the making so we’re focusing all our efforts on making it as good as it can possibly be". Watch this space, it's going to be a good'un.
LCoM dished up a lot of treats at the go-to May festival and has added plenty of new music to the Ones-to-Watch list for what's hot next year - Thanks Brighton!
Want to hear some of the music? Check out our May playlist which rounds up lots of wonderful Leeds groups hitting the festival circuit this summer, and most importantly, catch our Brighton artists on there!
Find out more about studying at Leeds College of Music, where you'll have access to many performance opportunities just like this....
