After larding up and pancaking hard last week I found myself tweeting again on the toilet. Take that sentence as you will. But in doing so I caught a glimpse of the first line-up announcement for The Great Escape festival on 16th-18th May. Oh it’s a good one!
See… the problem with The Great Escape is that it excels at putting on fantastic line-ups year after year spread across the illustrious and vibrant playground that is Brighton, but in doing so makes it near impossible to see who you want. The expectation of standing in queues amongst heart-sinking chatter about ‘1-in-1-out’ is now all too familiar and any start-of-the-day strategies that tend to help at most other festivals are a waste of time. But there lies the beauty of The Great Escape – it’s not like other festivals. The emphasis on discovery is so much more apparent, even on the website where it brags ‘350 New Artists’ at this year’s event. Some of the best memories to have come out of any festival are ones of stumbling across something new and although TGE makes it difficult to see the bigger names, it guarantees to make it easy to discover new ones.
Get your own highlights but mine are Nick Mulvey, King Krule, Sweet Baboo, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Mac DeMarco and David Rodigan, deservedly now an MBE.
