Festival Review – The Great Escape 2026 (Brighton)

The Great Escape, multi-venue across Brighton, 13th – 16th May 2026

Largely blessed with sunshine despite forecasts of rain all week, this year’s Great Escape pulled off another masterclass in programming a massive event over the duration of the four-day festival’s 20th anniversary. Hundreds of artists from around the world, an abundance of venues, and music from all genres offered up something for everyone. True to its tagline The Festival for New Music, there was plenty to explore and some new favourite acts to discover in every corner.

We started Wednesday evening with the range of local talent being promoted on the BBC Introducing stage at Concorde 2; Winter Gardens up first. The band seem to continually refine their fusion of gothic shoegaze, and manage to create the same ambience whatever size stage they’re on. It was a solid start to proceedings and we stayed on for the next act, Gilska, who blended alt-pop with modulated synth breaks with ease.

top: Winter Gardens, bottom: Gilska

Time for a quick wander along the seafront to check out the layout for The Beach stages – and just in time because as we were leaving the area was already operating a one-out one-in policy, largely down to the huge queues for the Canadian disguised duo of Angine de Poitrine. We were headed to a packed Daltons for a hip hop – grime – metal mash up perfectly executed by Native James, who somehow got a circle pit going where there surely wasn’t enough room to do so!

Native James

The draw back to Concorde was driven by Lemonsuckr, definitely on the must-see list for a lot of festival-goers, this seemed like our best chance of catching them as their other pending sets were in much smaller venues. Despite the hype, they didn’t disappoint, with an immersive show from the outset. The formula is well established by the likes of Deadletter and Gurriers, but the five-piece manage to add a quirky confidence-filled touch that elevates their spiky post-punk offering into something fresh. It won’t be a surprise to see them taking on bigger headline slots over the coming year.

Lemonsuckr

Onto fuller days and a wonderfully impressive performance to kick off Thursday from Aimée Fatale on The Beach Soundwaves stage, with echoes of Dusty Springfield / Nancy Sinatra and a strong 60s’ vibe and styling. It’s clear from her online fanbase that Aimée is grabbing attention for all the right reasons – her delivery is smooth, her songs are well put together, and there’s a speakeasy atmosphere to boot. Final song, The Way It Is, is something quite special. Will see again.

Aimée Fatale

A couple more acts at The Beach before heading into the city – Marina Josephina caused us to stop off at The Jetty stage to take a listen to her jazz-tinged vocals, then back to Soundwaves for a switch up to some indie rock tunes from Ireland’s Black Nylon. And all of this before lunch…

top: Marina Josephina, bottom: Black Nylon

The afternoon took in a trip to the Canada House showcase. Micah Sage gave us some fine alt-pop along with a ‘Favourite Ex-Girlfriend’ sash presented to – well, her favourite ex-girlfriend. Following on, Featurette turned up the volume and turned down the lights for jagged electronics overlaid with powerful vocals. An impressive mix of different styles and genres, which continued the next day with an energetic and engaging set from Vera Daisies, nodding towards indie/grunge but also adding in some lighter elements and interesting attempts at bi-lingual conversations by the crowd – let’s just say her English was better than their French!

top left: Micah Sage, top right: Featurette, bottom: Vera Daisies

The evening saw some big queues joining up between neighbouring venues at Waterbear Music Bar for Walt Disco, followed by Pigeon at Charles St Tap. For those lucky enough to make it inside, Walt Disco in their latest evolution were beset with technical issues which ultimately cut their set short. However, the songs they managed to squeeze in were well received, with latest single Coup de Foudre probably getting the biggest reaction. To say there was a queue for Pigeon is something of an understatement as, where the pavement ran out on one side, there was actually a second line formed across the road. Missing the first 10 minutes of their slot didn’t take away from the quality of what came next. Bags of energy and clap-alongs ensued, their afro-funk beats grabbing the crowd by the hand and insisting it danced along. One of the stand out shows of the week for sure.

Walt Disco

Pigeon

Over at Patterns, Annie-Claude Deschênes was making the most of the club speakers for her dystopian disco party. Whilst a chunk of the crowd may not really have known what to expect, the whole room seemed to be having a good time, resulting in the only stage invasion we witnessed.

Back at Charles St Tap, The Orielles packed the venue. Still with their original line-up, they don’t look old enough to have been around as long as they have but, given they were barely into their teens when they formed that does add up. While they’ve overhauled their sound and it’s definitely less poppy than before, it’s good to see them still in their element and as in sync as ever. Another artist who hit success in their teens, Australia’s Ruel is now one of their biggest names in pop and proved popular with the late night crowd at Brighthelm.

Ruel

Some highlights from the seafront venues on Friday included the long walk down the pier to Horatio’s to catch Marsy’s mix of indie-folk songs. Their music was easily enjoyable and entwined with pop sensibilities and delicate melodies. They were followed by Y, fusing together different genres and previous band influences. Complete with shades and an air of intentional chaos, ‘experimental’ is clearly high in their vocabulary.

Always good to finish up with some thumping electronic beats; veering almost to trip-hop in their newer material, PVA have been stalwarts of the dance/rave scene for the best part of 10 years now and seem comfortable in their skins as festival-pleasers. Certainly regulars on the Brighton events calendar, it’s fitting to have them here this week.

So there we have it, another year done and dusted, a hive of activity all across the city, lots of connections made, and a plethora of new music names introduced to us and many others. We’ll be checking in with some of the artists we saw at TGE over the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for more of an insight into about they enjoyed the festival and what they’re up to next…