The Great Escape Festival 2023 - Full of brilliant and diverse new music

Only Austin’s South by South West can compare, but last time I checked you can’t get to Texas on the number 46 bus.

The ever-expanding three-day festival this year featured more than 400 acts, performing at more than 30 venues across the city from May 10 to 13.

Every year it’s a staggering logistical achievement and a brilliant three days and night of new music of all genres from all over the world.

The huge line ups have also become more diverse and interesting since its inception in 2006.

It’s always had a strong international feel with record companies showing off their global acts, but the emphasis seems to have moved away from pallid young boys making a racket with guitars.

It’s also a big event for the music industry, which is why every May there’s a sudden influx of thousands of sunglasses and lanyard-wearing delegates chugging around the city centre.

The emphasis is definitely on showcasing new music with a few bigger acts performing ‘spotlight’ shows at the Dome, which this year included Maisie Peters and Arlo Parks.

And there’s also always a few well-established and ‘heritage’ acts in the mix, The Pretenders were special guests at the Old Market this time around.

But discovering new music is very much the order of the day, and The Great Escape is peerless for bringing interesting new acts into your life.

Any review you read is likely to be very different from the other because of the sheer numbers of performers.

This reviewer’s festival began in the Stygian gloom downstairs at Patterns with the brooding, compelling and somewhat Gothic songs and soundscapes of Proteins of Magic, at a showcase of acts from New Zealand, and within a couple of hours moved to the sunshine of Jubilee Square stage, dancing to the joyful sounds of the 13-piece Columbian/English Mestivo Collective.

On the same day other highlights included the wonderful MF Tomlinson at Revenge, a young London-based Aussie, whose band delivered a big sound to accompany some beautifully arranged and melodious epic tunes, and at the One Church the snarling, spoken word fury of Teeside’s Benefit, whose anti-establishment sentiments, ferocious drums and howling noise, made the Sleaford Mods sound like the Hollies.

Great Escape festival goers need to be flexible, because at any one time there will be dozens of acts appearing at the same time at the 30 different venues across the city, so clashes are inevitable and sometimes you end up thinking on your feet (literally) and seeing performers you hadn’t previously considered.

Croybon-based rapper DXVL hadn’t been at the top of my must-see list, but packed out venues elsewhere meant we rocked up at Charles Street Tap to see his awesome Friday afternoon show, which was a lot of fun and a lot of dry ice. And the relatively unheralded Sweden’s Deki Alem, a duo who have spend recent months tearing through European festivals duly cranked up their unique brand of upbeat vocal drum and bass at an utterly heaving and sweaty Volks Tavern.

Another great thing about the Great Escape is seeing music at venues rarely used for gigs in Brighton. It’s surprising that more shows aren’t held at places like the One Church and the Brighthelm Centre, with the latter hosting a showcase of Scottish bands including the full-pelt jangly country-rock of The Joy Hotel.

The Paganini Ballroom at The Old Ship Hotel, is always a joy and memorable performances past Great Escape performances from Aldous Harding and Ibibio Sound Machine, this year welcomed the wonderful Girls of Grime, a London collective of female rappers whose big booming sound system reverberated around carpeted venue where the great violinist Paganini performed on December 9 1831 (there’s a plaque on the wall, so I didn’t even have to Google it).

Italy was this year’s ‘lead country partner’ for TGE23 and provided one of the most unreconstructedly hard-rocking bands in the form of the Gluts, from Milan, their show at Three Wise Cats (formerly Casablanca’s) was a rapid effects-driven noise-fest, with a lively bit of mic-swinging from lead singer Nicolò Campana.

There was some slightly poppier fare from Sweden’s Sötnos, whose name we were told by the well-mannered boys from Stockholm, translates as ‘cutie-pie’, they sang ‘i’d make you nice pancakes in the morning’ and you believed them.

Similarly Delores Forever (a English/Danish girl duo with supporting band) played at Horatio’s bar on Brighton Pier, sang nice harmonies in widescreen pop tunes, with more than just a hint of ‘80s Fleetwood Mac.

For all of the international talent at the festival one of the stand-out shows came from Chichester’s finest, Traams, who are back after a five-year hiatus.

Now performing as a five-piece their barnstorming set at Horatio’s was full of growling guitar riffs and slow-building hypnotic pounding grooves, late on the festival’s final evening.

Tickets are already on sale for next year’s event and I’m sure they’ll fly out.

It’s not perfect, the queues and the clashes will always be an issue and cheaper and uniform drinks prices would be welcome, but it’s a marvellous annual treat for live music fans there’s nothing to rival it in the UK for it’s size and scope.