Special Events

The Great Escape 2019

The Great Escape is THE festival for new music, showcasing 500 emerging artists from all over the world in 30+ walkable venues across the city plus, new for 2018, a festival site on Brighton Beach. It’s the first place to discover your new favourite artist and see them in an intimate setting before they go on to headline major festival stages.

Wednesday May 8th

The Great Escape

Thursday May 9th

Al Duomo

The Prince Albert

Brighton Dome

Volks Bar

Beyond Retro

The Black Lion

Friday May 10th

Komedia

Latest Music Bar

Concorde 2

Hideout

The Prince Albert

The Admiral

Saturday May 11th

The Prince Albert

The Tempest Inn

  • Orchards | Hidden Herd Showcase (unofficial) 21:00

One Church

The Walrus

Green Door Store

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Tourist

Tourist is the latest addition to the burgeoning roster of Disclosure affiliated label, Method Records. Marking his second release of the year, following on from his Tonight EP, Tourist continues his prolific development, expanding his already extensive range and breadth of melody and song structure. With the announcement of his new EP his shift to a more progressive and intricate understanding of his role as producer has lead him to working with vocalists for the first time, featuring MNEK and newcomer Jacob Banks.

Shows

  • Friday 10/05/2019  23:45 Komedia
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Petrol Girls

Petrol Girls are a feminist post-hardcore punk band, originally formed in London, with members from Austria, Lithuania and the UK. Now based all over the place and touring incessantly, the band are strong advocates of freedom of movement, anti capitalism and intersectional feminism. Rooted in a DIY music community that has always combined politics with punk rock, Petrol Girls are part of a counter culture challenging mainstream values like nationalism and the gender binary, and the oppressions that these ideals promote. With a diverse range of influences such as Refused, The Slits, Fugazi and Björk, and having had the pleasure to support bands such as The Dead Kennedys, Propagandhi, RVIVR, Anti Flag and Refused, the band are constantly developing musically as well as politically. Their music frequently toys with unusual time signatures and harmonic movement, with screaming and harsh angular rhythms to sad and desperate melodic moments or raging anthemic choruses. The lyrics grow from direct experiences and genuine questions, pushing beyond repetitive slogans to provoke meaningful conversations about what we’re actually going to do to change something.

Shows

  • Thursday 9/05/2019  23:30 The Prince Albert ITB Showcase
  • Friday 10/05/2019  15:30 The Prince Albert
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Annabel Allum

Loaded with pulsating hooks and enigmatic tenacious vocals, Annabel Allum oozes charisma and showcases an adept ability to marry folk-style storytelling with snarling fuzzy indie. The Guildford-based singer-songwriter has been backed across tastemaker platforms as one of the most vitally sarcastic voices in the indie scene, with praise coming from key press voices in FADER, DIY and The Line of Best Fit as well as on the airwaves. ‘Beat the Birds’, taken from 2018’s ‘Sorry I’m Not Perceptible’ EP, found its place on the Radio 1 BBC Introducing Playlist and she earned herself a spot on the lineup of BBC Music’s The Biggest Weekend in Swansea. Huw Stephens is a vocal supporter of Annabel’s music and premiered her latest single ‘Fear Naught’ ahead of her Maida Vale live session.

Shows

  • Thursday 9/05/2019  21:30 The Prince Albert ITB Showcase
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Pat Dam Smyth

PAT DAM SMYTH’S 2016 saw him scorch through packed out sets at Reeperbahn Festival, The Great Escape and several London showcases including a sell-out in The Roundhouse’s Sackler Theatre for the MVT #Fightback benefit, as well as a thunderous Lexington show at the start of the year.

Shows

  • Saturday 11/05/2019  15:30 One Church
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Kara Marni

Since its release in September 2017, Kara Marni’s debut single ‘Golden’ has amassed incredible radio support from the likes of industry tastemakers MistaJam, DJ Target, Annie Mac, Benji B and Jamz Supernova, with her follow-up single ‘Curve’ premiering on BBC 1Xtra and singles to date totalling over 5.8m streams.

Shows

  • Thursday 9/05/2019  21:15 Brighton Dome
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Orchards

Combining left field experimentation with pop sensibilities Orchards are following in the footsteps of bands such as Everything Everything and Foals. Orchards have appeared at festivals such as Handmade, TRUCK, YNOT and Alternative Escape they have also performed as part of the global music series Sofar Sounds. As well as being featured on playlists curated by Spotify & Buzzfeed. Orchards have been played on Local and National radio shows. Including, BBC Introducing, Juice Radio and BBC Radio 6.

Shows

  • Thursday 9/05/2019  20:00 Beyond Retro (unofficial)
  • Saturday 11/05/2019  14:00 The Prince Albert
  • Saturday 11/05/2019  21:00 The Tempest Inn Hidden Herd Showcase (unofficial)
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Dayo Bello

20 year old & BRIT School graduate Dayo Bello made waves last year with his debut single Mine which was recorded in his bedroom. Having moved around London constantly during childhood, the south-east London resident has been influenced by Soul, Grime and Gospel music.

Shows

  • Friday 10/05/2019  21:15 Latest Music Bar
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Boniface

Micah Visser named his band after the Winnipeg neighbourhood where he grew up, where he spent his childhood learning violin and saxophone, guitar, piano, computer programming, until he could no longer remember when he stopped playing other people’s songs and began writing his own.

Shows

  • Friday 10/05/2019  20:00 Concorde 2
  • Saturday 11/05/2019  13:15 The Walrus
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John J Presley

John J Presley grew up in Birmingham and after some years in London now resides in Brighton. With two hugely successful singles and an EP under his belt he is gearing up for the release of his debut album this year which is coming out through BMG and AWAL.

Shows

  • Thursday 9/05/2019  20:30 The Prince Albert ITB Showcase
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Red Rum Club

Formed in early 2016, Red Rum Club are a sextet from Liverpool, channelling ‘Tarantino-esque’ wild western vibes with the help of a solitary trumpet. Amongst the 80s Liverpool influence they deliver a modern twist of poetic yet catchy lyrics combined with melodies that blend to create the sound that is unmistakably, Red Rum Club.

Shows

  • Thursday 9/05/2019  19:30 The Prince Albert ITB Showcase
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Sick Joy

Newcastle born and now Brighton based trio Sick Joy return with raspy and impactful new single ‘Heaven’, released on the 30th January via Killing Moon. ‘Heaven’ features static grunge in the verse and feels like a ticking time bomb at the eruptive chorus. Be sure to stick around for vocalist Mykl’s isolated gripping vocals towards the end to get a feeling of Sick Joy’s unwavering vitality.

Shows

  • Wednesday 8/05/2019  20:30 The Great Escape The Beach Stage
  • Thursday 9/05/2019  21:00 Volks Bar
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The Estevans

The Estevans, a captivating four piece indie-rock band from Guildford, England, led by songwriter Guy Ferris and frontman Oscar Pugin who started collaborating musically in late 2014.

Shows

  • Saturday 11/05/2019  20:15 The Prince Albert
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Porridge Radio

Porridge Radio are one of the most vital new voices in alternative music, having gone from the DIY underground to one of the UK’s most thrilling bands. Their barbed wit, lacerating intensity and potent blend of art-rock, indie-pop and post-punk sounds like little else around, and led to their 2020 album Every Bad making the coveted Mercury Prize shortlist.

Shows

  • Saturday 11/05/2019  (time tbc) Green Door Store
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Avalanche Party

Avalanche Party is feral garage-punk rock & roll from the wild North Yorkshire Moors, hopped up on adrenalin and amphetamines. Their sound is intense and immediate, so new yet so familiar and brimming with an urgency that explodes off the stage like the front lines of a war you didn’t even realise was being fought. Every note played through white knuckles, every word spat through gritted teeth. The beats blast like cannons while the guitars stampede like spooked stallions surging ever onward, snorting, snarling and tearing apart everything in their path.

Shows

  • Thursday 9/05/2019  16:30 The Black Lion End Of The Trail
  • Friday 10/05/2019  15:30 The Admiral Louder Then War
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Big Society

Big Society, affectionately known as B.S, met at university in Manchester. Will, Harry and Thom started things off 2 and half years ago, latterly joined by – former male hand model – Alex. William, originally from Edinburgh, was inspired to start writing songs because his debts to the taxman, and in time B.S’s first single (17) was released. Recorded at Hackney Road studios with the help of Mikko Hakkinen, the fasted Finn on Pro-Tools, Big Society was on their way.

Shows

  • Thursday 9/05/2019  22:30 The Prince Albert ITB Showcase
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LIFE

Hull’s post-punk absurdist polemics LIFE made quite an impact with their DIY debut album. 2017’s Popular Music was championed by BBC 6Music’s Steve Lamacq and won firm fans (and friends) in fellow post-punkers Idles. Most unexpectedly, Popular Music even ended up in BBC Radio 1 Albums Of The Year list, where Life’s gnarly, Humberside riffs and scattergun wordplay kept unlikely – but deserved - company with the likes of Jay-Z, Skepta, the xx and Wolf Alice. Two years on, their eagerly awaited, dryly-titled second album, A Picture Of Good Health, ups the ante musically and lyrically.

Shows

  • Thursday 9/05/2019  01:01 Al Duomo
  • Friday 10/05/2019  19:45 Hideout
  • Saturday 11/05/2019  22:15 The Prince Albert Unofficial
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