The Great Escape 2025: The Report

Brighton may be known for its plus size seagulls, but it's also home to The Great Escape festival, a music industry melting pot that's back on track this year after a partnership with Barclays nearly knocked them off their rails in 2024, with over 100 bands pulling out in solidarity with the people of Palestine for the Bands Boycott Barclays campaign.

With Barclays no longer involved, more 400 bands gleefully rock up to the four-day coastal soiree this year, with networking events, and for want of a better word, ‘schmoozing’, high up a lot of agendas. Showcases hosted and curated by labels like FatCat and Transgressive, magazines like Clash and DIY, international festivals like M for Montreal, other UK nations, and the DIY aesthetic of the 'Alternative Escape' – if you can find it – offer standout moments in an overwhelmingly packed few days of music. But the only time it truly feels like we’re at a festival is when we're forced to listen to the marquee-muffled warbles of Peter Doherty as we eat some chips down by the pebble-dashed beach on night one.

Our main reason for attending TGE, of course, is to check out the Scotland at The Great Escape programme, two afternoons of music in wildly disparate locations, hosted by Creative Scotland and Wide Days. Thursday’s event unexpectedly brings us to Horatio’s, a nautical bar at the very tip of the grade two listed Brighton Palace Pier, while Friday takes us inland, to the Brighthelm Community Centre, offering insight into two very different sides of the city. Following a knockout performance in the downstairs of Puzzles as part of a FatCat showcase on Wednesday night, Glasgow outfit Water Machine open proceedings at Horatio’s, ripping through songs from their forthcoming debut album God Park, awash with humour and quirky, musical joy. Multi-tasker extraordinaire Fourth Daughter’s bubbling brand of dancefloor worthy electro-pop follows, before Glasgow indie-rock outfit, and 2024 BBC Introducing Scottish Act of the Year Bottle Rockets draw an enormous crowd to the pier for an accomplished set of tunes and exceptional musicianship; their cover of Fontaines D.C.’s I Love You as well as their own single Limerance (an earworm if ever there was one) are real highlights of their half hour. 

But day one truly belongs to Glasgow’s not backwards in coming forwards punks SOAPBOX. “I was promised good fucking weather,” forthright frontman Tom Rowan states with a glint, or possibly sweat, in his eye. “It’s warmer in Glasgow. Why did I bother driving here?” Observations of poor weather aside, their entire set is incredibly entertaining, and Rowan is an absolute rocket of a performer; rarely stood still for longer than five seconds, he insists on hanging from the rope-adorned roof, intimidates and slops beer on the crowd, steals the hat from an unsuspecting woman, who looks regretful for choosing to stand at the front, and slags off Keir Starmer as well as all the 6 Music Dad’s in the room, all the while causing his (we assume) Tour Manager all manner of headaches as he's forced to chase him around the room to make sure the XLR cable doesn’t get tangled up in the crowd. Needless to say, it’s a riot, and all before 4pm. The kind of show you don’t forget in a hurry, while some in the crowd are reluctant to get involved, others can’t pass up the opportunity for a mid-afternoon mosh in the light of day.

Image: Indoor Foxes @ Brighthelm Community Centre, The Great Escape, Brighton, 16 May by Jannica Honey

Friday delivers a similarly eclectic mix of Scottish talent during the afternoon showcases. After a late night slot on Thursday at Dust, Martha Barr, aka Indoor Foxes, opens proceedings at the Brighthelm Community Centre, part of the United Reformed Church. While giddily throwing branded condoms from a handbag into the crowd was perhaps best suited to the nightclub she played the night afore, it’s an absolutely hilarious face palm moment in a crackerjack set that sees Barr push her voice to absolute extremes of beauty and fury, while throwing herself into the crowd when the feeling takes her – Barr is having fun and she wants you to know it! Theo Bleak, the moniker of Dundee's Katie Lynch, follows, with a beautiful and pained heft that’s hard to comprehend. Playing on the same day as releasing her latest EP, Bad Luck Is Two Yellow Flowers, in-between the beauty and the heartache, her personality shines through as she jokes about her band resisting playing the festival in the past due to parking difficulties that long-time collaborator, bandmate and driver Mark Johnston would have to deal with. She also takes great pleasure in winding him up in relation to the “comical number of guitars on stage”, stating that it’s due to her bad guitar playing, and having lots of different tunings on songs. “It’s my band’s problem now,” she laughs.

Azamiah then delight a busy hall with songs from their forthcoming EP Two Lands. Thanking their team in-between songs, they’re ever so slightly plagued by tech gremlins today which forces a cable change mid-set, but the soulful jazz and R’n’B outfit don’t let it bother them, India Blue’s vocals crisp and bright, soaring to heights not humanly possible to most. Finally, performing as a three-piece, corto.alto’s Liam Shortall, joined by drummer Graham Costello and saxophonist Mateusz Sobieszki, round out two day of Scotland at The Great Escape. Given their 2024 Mercury Prize nomination (or “lost the 2024 Mercury Prize” as Shortall jokes in their Instagram bio), it’s no surprise they play to the biggest crowd of the two afternoons of Scottish showcases. And of course, it’s not their first show of the festival, it’s their third, with many artists playing multiple shows during the festival. Having played the night before in the kitsch, awkwardly shaped karaoke bar Revenge, as well as arts space Fabrica just three hours earlier, corto.alto are remarkably fresh for this afternoon's showcase, delivering unbelievable rhythms, Shortall's music built of mind-twisting time signatures, and enviable musical talent, that seems to come effortlessly to the three.

As well as an unreal couple of afternoons revelling proudly in the talent Scotland’s music scene has to offer, at the TGE-renowned Scottish Reception, hosted by Creative Scotland and Wide Days, we eat haggis, neeps and salty chips, while deep fried mars bars are handed out like fancy canapés. We unexpectedly bump into ex-footballer and DJ Pat Nevin, who swings by for a taste of home. He’s in town for a special in-conversation event as part of the festival with long-time friend, Cocteau Twins member and Bella Union founder Simon Raymonde. 


Miso Extra @ Chalk, The Great Escape, Brighton, 16 May courtesy of The Great Escape

Schmoozing with fellow Scots aside, in the evenings our time at TGE brings exciting international sounds from South Korea (Hypnosis Therapy), Canada (Debby Friday, Sorry Girls, Patche), France (PAMELA), Australia (Sex Mask), and Spain, as Catalan’s bonkers Mugatu-fronted Power Ranger trio Mainline Magic Orchestra give us a second wind late on Friday night. We also catch loads of talented UK talent like GANS, HotWax, Miso Extra, Blood Wizard, and Getdown Services; the latter's big lols disco bangers have folks denied entry as the queue outside Revenge winds round the corner and down the street out of view. Inside, the atmosphere is as silly as the bucket hat on the girl next to us – it's covered in the word 'cunt'. "I got it from a stall at the beach – £10", she tells us laughing as she bops along to songs like Get Back Jamie, Crisps and Eat Quiche, Sleep, Repeat.

So that's the report. Seagulls, the beach, Pat Nevin, silly hats, excellent music, deep fried mars bars and an insane amount of Scottish talent. What more could you want?

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The Great Escape took place in Brighton, UK, 14-17 May and in returns in 2026 from 13-16 May

greatescapefestival.com