Festival Review – The Great Escape 2025

The Great Escape Festival, Brighton, 14th-17th May 2025

This year’s Great Escape brought sunshine along with a huge range of new music from around the world. Four days of gigs in venues large, small and purpose-built offered up something for everyone. We’ve put together our highlights and hope you’ll find some new names as well as acts already on your radar in there…

Starting off strong on Wednesday evening, Brighton favourites Holiday Ghosts brought in a solid crowd at Patterns. Playing a tight set, the band are a well oiled machine, still winning over new fans and ensuring a good time was had by all. Over at The Hope & Ruin, Montreal’s Alix Fernz opened things up with synth-punk tunes that also drew a big response, particularly for so early on the day. Following on at The Hope, Polite Bureaux received a warm welcome back to Brighton. With songs old and new standing up equally, it’s great to see things picking up for them on a wider scale and reflects how hard they’ve worked to get to this point. Broke Biscuits is hard to beat live.

Alix Fernz © 16beasleyst

Polite Bureaux © 16beasleyst

Along the road, Knives took to the stage at The Albert, albeit that the stage could barely hold all of them, a plethora of instruments and some impressive high kicks. Heaps of energy, noise levels set to the max, and always bonus points for a sax, it was an impressive performance. Local alt-folk artist REA entertained at Jubilee Square in a slightly more subdued manner, the eclectic nature of the TGE line-up being one of its strongest features.

Back to Patterns with Water Machine – hopping between genres, it’s a plus to see a band clearly enjoying themselves, and their songs and performance both felt full of optimism. A heady close to the first day’s proceedings at the city’s grassroots venues, while spotlight shows down at The Beach (Deep End) included crowd-pleasers from Peter Doherty and Warmduscher.

REA © iso400.com

Knives (left), Water Machine (right) © 16beasleyst

Peter Doherty © iso400.com

Warmduscher © iso400.com

Some new discoveries on Thursday kicking off with Joshua Idehen at Komedia Basement – gaining a lot of momentum currently, he won over the crowd effortlessly with a mix of spoken word, housey-electronic beats and more than a bucket load of charisma, engaging the audience in a Nigerian rather than Mexican wave, hugs and hand shaking. Next up Chlöe’s Clue took full advantage of the intimate setting at Queen’s Hotel with people standing and sitting to take in what the Spanish act describe as ‘lullabies for adults’. Incorporating a mixture of toy instruments into their delicate pop tunes, they’re definitely worth another look and listen.

Back to The Hope bar for an unofficial slot from the very entertaining Pleasureinc, before heading upstairs to a much anticipated set from Peter Xan, with high expectations that were easily lived up to. The whole band are a joy to watch, animated, interactive and with clear musicianship on display. The fusion of styles is far from covered in the ‘indie-rock’ title often bestowed on them; there are many more layers to the tracks than that and it’s a compelling performance all round.

Pleasureinc © 16beasleyst

Peter Xan © 16beasleyst

A late announcement that The Horrors would be joining TGE’s line-up at The Beach (Deep End) was an inspired booking. The grown up goths never fail to prove that they became so much more than how they started. Back to their prime, they quickly and effortlessly pulled the crowd onside with a string of hits ranging across their career. A tinge of nostalgia but no doubt that their talent has a special place in a lot of people’s hearts.

Last up for the night were Adult DVD, drawing a bigger audience every time they visit the coast. Filling the stage with synths and heavy electronica, they don’t at first glance seem the most likely to incur a mosh pit but none the less their fanbase has grown to a level where Komedia basement was indeed host to our first pit of the festival.

Adult DVD © 16beasleyst

Friday and still standing, we took in 60s/70s influenced emerging Dublin band Martina and The Moons at Dust, followed by Belfast punk trio Jock at Queen’s Hotel. Over at Paganini Ballroom, the intricate surroundings seem to attract some quality acts, this year’s notable entry coming from Baby Berserk. Striking visually and sonically, the 80s leaning dance trio from Amsterdam are reminiscent of Boy Harsher and wasted no time in climbing the stage speakers and the crowd – firmly on the ones to watch list. Meanwhile, Jessica Winter’s instantly recognisable falsetto pop stylised tunes gained her a big shout out from 6 Music’s Chris Hawkins at Shipwright’s Yard. And back at The Beach (Jetty stage) Welly gave their regular bouncy Britpop-esque show – it’ll be interesting to see how they sustain this as they grow further away from their early incarnation in full PE kits but, for now, they’re certainly a popular inclusion.

Welly © 16beasleyst

Along the promenade at Daltons, Glasgow’s SOAPBOX gave one of several much talked about performances across the weekend. A frenetic and furious set filled with brazen punk songs that are already firm favourites with the crowd, there’s no wasting time with niceties as they come into their own in a live setting – closing track Fascist Bob leaving the venue just about still in one piece.

SOAPBOX © 16beasleyst

A more chilled showcase from Dog Race at Unbarred (not part of official TGE although they also played elsewhere within that) displaying the progress they’ve made in the last year or so. Understated but captivating, 2025 could just be their year.

Moonlandingz’ visit to Chalk started promisingly with Lias running around the crowd from the get go in his usual chaotic manner. Sadly, the sound did them no favours – a good set that may well have been a great set if only we could have heard it properly. Meanwhile at Komedia Studio, some jangly indie tracks from Say Sue Me provided a welcome calm amongst the pandemonium elsewhere.

And so to a massive shout out for Leeds collective Honesty. Transforming Brighthelm into an immersive art installation, they played concealed between two screens, letting the music speak for itself among the fine-tuned projections which appeared in front of and behind them, complimenting the music rather than masking it. Something completely different is hard to come by and this was a beautiful way to see out day three.

After a pretty full agenda, Saturday was a quieter day for us but notable mentions for a few acts starting with Skydaddy packing The Albert with instrumentation that called to mind influences ranging from Belle & Sebastian to Cat Stevens, and even included a Christmas song. At the other end of the musical spectrum, Dabo Lang were happy to engage with the crowd between songs at Patterns, their style veering towards new rave, and DeBasement convinced the sound team at Chalk to ‘turn it up – louder!’ as the volume seemed to double and their well executed dance music kept everyone hooked in to finish the Great Escape party in style.

Another year down and lots of new music unearthed, thanks to all at TGE and all the artists/venues involved in making this a special few days. See you next year!

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Review by Callum & Siobhan
Photos of REA, Peter Doherty & Warmduscher © Mike Burnell iso400.com | Instagram: iso400mike
Remaining photos © Siobhan 16beasleystphotography.com | Instagram: 16beasleyst