2007's Great Escape in review, written in the wee small unprofessional hours before a trip to Amsterdam:
The Great Escape, is not really a festival, despite appearances to the contrary, like exhaustion, cheap noodles and tinnitus. It’s more a trade fair, where the great and the good of the UK music media pop down to the sea-side to snap up the Next Big Thing. The Kooks exploded off the back of last year’s, and a little band called Klaxons went from being, well, the Klaxons, to being the most influential band of 2006. That, essentially, is why a) there was not a truly shit band on all weekend b) punters queued for hours everywhere while smug laminate-badged delegates casually strolled in and c) tips were the talk of the town. Rockabilly-Metal band Gallows and you-saw-them-here-first Foals were the bands everyone was pretending to have seen. Less talked about (in grown-up circles, at least) but an equally dead cert is Jack – Jamie T meets Shakin’ Stevens - Peňate. Fact’s photographer was nearly torn apart limb-by-limb by a mob of sixteen year-old girls (think Combat 18 in Topshop skirts) who’d been waiting for Jack for god knows how long, and they smelled blood. Jack Penate for number 1, then: if there’s one thing to never bet against in pop music, it’s teenage girls hell-bent on ultra-violence.
Once you accept this fundamental fact about the Great Escape (that it is half hype sweatshop, half riot) you can actually concentrate on the music, man. And so much music! There is a great correspondence between the ADHD itch that 120 bands spread across 20 odd venues encourages and the agitated, jumpy rhythms so many of the bands played. Fear Of Flying, for example, are an excellent post-punk, angular, jerky three piece. If that sounds familiar, it was. A great band, but in five years we’ll say “yeah. That was 2007, that was.” By contrast, Late Of The Pier were mind-blowing, precisely because they didn’t sound like 2007 – on Thursday night they sounded like half nine on 17th May 2007. Beautiful.
CSS were a nicely riotous start to the weekend. A 200 strong moshpit generates enough heat to make Brazilians sweat, and they repaid the favour. After a quick chat with the bloke from the aforementioned Fear Of Flying, it was off for some cheap noodles and an early(ish) night. The battle was won, but the war had just begun. Friday night, the dash started.
The Hat came out on top – a smashing bunch whose rapping rockabilly meets Jackanory thing won the local types over at Sunday Best. Plus, the keyboardist Dave took time out of making a pizza to chat about the sea and ley-lines, so they are well and truly in my good books. After them were Kitty, Daisy and Lewis - the band that every mum wishes they were in. The same could not be said about either Gallows or zZz, who both caused the best bit of aggro since Stalingrad, a ruck rivalled only by the scene outside the just fucking phenomenal Foals. We knew they would destroy, but it didn’t half make us proud when they did.
Some of the best experiences are those you least expect – you could wander into the back of a pub and be blown away having seen the world’s greatest band. Music is a deeply personal thing, and experiences are most fruitful when they are unplanned. Whilst I broadly go along with these ideas, there is a the eternal risk of watching some Icelandic bint swanning around to a xylophone solo that Enya would have called “a bit naff,” as happened at Adjagas. Sometimes the ace, sometimes the deuces.
Two of the most optimistic moments of the weekend came from the hip hop side of things, for once. The chorus of Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius P’s opener might have been “hip-hop is arse”, “art” or “ours” – all of which sum up the state of play for HH this year dead-on. Spleen gave me the biggest grin all weekend not just because he won the crowd with his 175 bpm beatboxing, Bad Brains hardcore and pink tutu. We chatted backstage as he presided over his bandmate’s proposal to a punter. Seemingly unaware of the adoring (and obscene) platitudes that passing audience members thrust his way, he told me “art can change the world… I love rock and roll so much. Do you love rock and roll?”
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