Is a watershed moment still possible in an industry currently overwhelmed by noise and fast-changing trends? If last week (May 15-18)’s edition of The Great Escape is anything to go by then the answer is yes, very much so. In the build up to this year’s festival – which has long served as an annual mecca for new music – over 150 artists arranged a mass boycott in solidarity with Palestine, following the current Gaza-Israel conflict. They joined Bands Boycott Barclays, a campaign that claims the bank – who are sponsors of The Great Escape, alongside several other UK festivals including Latitude, Isle Of Wight and Download – has repeatedly invested in arms companies who supply to Israel.
- Read More: Bands on The Great Escape boycott: “Artists are realising they’re the ones with the power”
The movement received support from Massive Attack and Brian Eno among others, with the latter sharing a statement in response. “I want to salute the courageous artists who passed up a chance to play,” he said of the boycott, which was accompanied by an online petition started by How To Catch A Pig and Bristol band The Menstrual Camps, and signed by over 1,300 names including Lip Critic, Lambrini Girls and Alfie Templeman. The Great Escape are yet to issue a comment in response, while Barclays have directed criticisms to a transcript of a Q&A session from a recent AGM meeting.
The Brighton event has an illustrious history of supporting the careers of emerging artists, with the likes of Stormzy, Fontaines D.C., and recent NME Cover stars The Last Dinner Party and Rachel Chinouriri having played early shows there. For Team NME, too, it continues to remain an opportunity to engage with each year’s buzziest prospects across all genres, in hopes of scouting out fresh new talent to support across our global platforms.
There were varying reactions to the boycott – Big Special, for example, chose to play and instead donate their fee to the Palestine Child Relief fund – but above all else, the past week has showcased a real, robust support among musical peers across the country. There’s a lot to learn from those who risked damaging their own relationships and future opportunities to speak out. Their actions are the stuff of conviction, particularly at a time where it’s difficult to break through against the backdrop of an industry-wide economic crisis spurred by the Brexit touring fiasco and general post-pandemic malaise.
Across the weekend, many bands used their initiative and put on their own shows; others, who still appeared at the festival, seized the opportunity to make a statement. All of this served as a reminder to fight for what you believe in tooth and nail while also suggesting a possible way forward. Here, something that started as an online conversation ultimately became a collective cry for solidarity, and an experience of the change and energy that young, assured, impassioned artists can inspire.
Soft Launch deliver a loud love letter to community
In Hove’s Le Pub (The Paris House), a mile out from the central nucleus of Brighton’s small venues, Irish five-piece Soft Launch threw an intimate, brilliantly rowdy fundraiser in aid of Palestinian relief charities. Their 45 minute set was a frantic voyage from ‘Cartwheels’ – a track that evokes the colour and boisterousness of mid-2010s British indie-pop acts such as Beach Baby or Boy Azooga – to a slew of unreleased material, which saw band members swap instruments and vocal duties as each song passed. Their music is jubilant but inventive, replete with unexpected turns of melody.
A capacity limit of 50 meant that groups of young fans were left outside, but enough made it in to cause speakers to wobble and windows to fog up. Every inch of the ram-packed venue hosted a dancing, sweating body. When lead songwriter Josh McClorey brought Le Pub’s bar manager to the stage, who proceeded to tell the room that their live music licence had been renewed earlier that day, there was only one way to celebrate: a breathless, utterly joyous cover of ‘Daft Punk Is Playing At My House’.
James was right, they are fucking fantastic live
Happy 10th Soft Launch Show !! https://t.co/J7LKx03J26 pic.twitter.com/tOW506YRH8— Chloe’s stuck on the circle line ✱ (@CrashMyChloe) May 16, 2024
Emerging names experiment on the fly
One of the joys of watching new acts figure things out in the live arena is enjoying how their performance can come with some rough edges. Chiedu Oraka’s lunchtime performance on Friday (May 17) at The Hope & Ruin was as much an opportunity to test out material from his recent ‘Misfit’ mixtape, while also trying to make midday feel as lively as midnight. Whenever bending and darting around the stage would leave Oraka breathless, he would relinquish vocal duties to his backing MC Deezkid – an equally sprightly and dynamic performer.
Welsh rockers Mellt, meanwhile, spoke of the significance of their single ‘Diwrnod Arall’ (‘Another Day’) and its central theme of displacement “in light of current events”, ramping up the emotion with a series of extended guitar solos. Fred Roberts’ set was similarly defined by its candour: messages of hope and bright days ahead were conveyed through stratospheric pop hooks, gaining emotional power as they were repeated each time a chorus rolled around.
Better Joy thrill at the Brighton Rock ‘N’ Roll Circus
Unofficial or alternative events aren’t a new part of The Great Escape, though this year they took on extra resonance for those in attendance. The Brighton Rock ‘N’ Roll Circus, hosted by The Font pub, took place concurrent to the official festival programme, allowing those without a delegate wristband to enjoy a few hours of live music for free. As a result, the crowd was diverse in age (many a baby’s first gig, it seemed) and also saw Brighton locals Josh Franceschi (You Me At Six) and Chris Wood (Bastille) make an appearance.
Better Joy’s performance on Thursday afternoon (May 16) was a quiet triumph of grace, as the Manchester band’s crunchy, Blondshell-like alt-rock shifted between gentle blasts of distortion (‘Dead Plants’) and hissing percussion (‘Hard To Love’). Led by vocalist and guitarist Bria Keely, the band are currently being positioned by radio tastemakers as UK indie’s next breakthrough act; this performance may have felt a little subdued, but it’s clear that they are on the right path. You wonder what they could sound like by being even bolder.
Jacob Alon offers humour, heart and a genuinely poignant moment
Ricocheting between references to poppers (‘Liquid Gold 25’) and ballads of destruction (‘Sertraline’), Fife-born artist Jacob Alon broke the fourth wall immediately during their set at Fabrica. Though often doused in grief, their songwriting has a Jens Lekman-esque playfulness to it, paired with a gorgeous, winsome vocal and the occasional kalimba flourish.
Towards the end of their set, Alon took a five-minute break to speak on the boycott surrounding this year’s The Great Escape. “I am incredibly proud of everyone who has chosen to drop out, but one of the reasons I wanted to play is that it’s not often you get a platform like this to speak to people,” they said, before reading the latest headlines related to the war from their phone, and then calling for the festival to “totally divest from Barclays in the future”. To loud cheers, they launched into closer ‘The Dunes’, letting the music do the rest of the talking.