Unlike Steve McQueen, Gigwise Survives The Great Escape

Gigwise is still recovering from our weekend in Brighton but we're taking time out from nursing our aching body to tell you all about the fun we had at The Great Escape. It went a little something like this - bands, drink, bands, drink, bands, drink, sleep, bands, drink, bands, drink - we think you get the picture.

Highlights of the weekend included the Gigwise stage with brilliant sets from the bands, especially The Whip and Hot Club de Paris who both packed our basement in the Ocean Rooms out. Brilliant sets by White Lies (They're going to be massive!), Broken Records at the Levi's One's To Watch showcase (Those Scottish guys could get a grave yard dancing), Yeasayer (Although we were a little drunk to remember every moment of it), Dead Kids playing a set on the beach and ending up in the sea and a daytime gig by Post War Years (We just can't get enough of them!).

While we were there we also got a couple of bands to share their experiences at the festival with us too. Check them out below:

Jacob Mae Shi

Jon threw up from a doughnut he ate on the pier and Bill fell off a table during our set. This comes to show that there is a strange kinetic energy when you play a gig over water. The audience was really friendly and some even joined us on stage to sing songs. My favourite person there was the ripped (or buff) sound guy.  Playing the pier was a lot of fun, though we wish we could have hung out in the arcade or Karaoke bar more. The night’s bill included 3 other bands that we are in love with too: Tubelord, Slow Club and Hot Club de Paris.
 
Johnny Foreigner, our pals who played down the street, had an aftershow beach party where some people used government structures to build a bonfire.
 
Anarchy in the UK.

Sam Tunng

We always have a good night in Brighton, it’s a bit of a home gig so it was a night of lots of friends and beers.  The crowd was in a great mood which made for a brilliant atmosphere and with a short set we just stuck to all the upbeat songs (which I really like doing).  We even got to do a short encore, all the more amazing because we weren’t headlining!!! Afterwards I saw Ben Ottewell do a great set at the Komedia.  And then spent an hour or two having beers with my sister and a load of mates. Slept on a sofa which is a sure sign of a good night.

XX Teens

A lot of people think The Great Escape festival takes its name from the charmingly jingoistic second world war film starring Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough as Jude Law and Danny Dyer.  Probably they’re right. There is, however, a growing faction within the paleontological community that believe its roots go back a lot further, -even pre-dating man.  They think it all started with ‘The Greatest Ape’, a prehistoric talent contest where, every year, monkeys and baboons from all over the country would climb down from the treetops to see who was best at indie music.  It was very hard to decide in those days because all the apes looked and sounded pretty much the same, they all had lots of hair and they all made a similar noise.  There was always lots of fighting about who was best.

After millions of years they worked out it didn’t have to be a competition at all, - it could just be a festival, a great big free party by the sea.  They invented journalists to decide on the winners so there’d be no more fighting.  Now all the apes were happy and a lot of them couldn’t wait to evolve so they could make proper modern music like the XX Teens.

Hot Club de Paris

Moshi Moshi party @ Horatios Bar, Friday 17th May

We legged it down to Brighton from Liverpool in our tiny three seater van playing all the completely ridiculous games that we've developed over the last three years of fairly solid touring. The band name game being the tamest but most the most technical. The goal is to create a chain of band names where the last word of each band starts the next band name. For example; The The Fall Out Boy Kill Boy George Micheal Jackson 5 Knuckle Dust Brothers. That shit will win you 10 points at competition rules or 11 if you're simply riffing with the boys on the corner. Our other games are well vile and would lose us our jobs and friendships. Our parents would weep like newborns.

So yeah, the first show is at Horatios, located at the end of the pier, with Tubelord and our pals Slow Club and The Mae Shi. The rattle of the nearby arcade lures us in and Al beats the shit out of some squirrels with a mallet and I get my aura read. My aura is blue and I'm fucking well talented, apparently. We draw 1-1 during a quid's worth of air hockey games.
 
Slow Club and the Mae Shi deliver wonderfully ramshackle sets, with members of each band drifting on and off each other's stages to contribute where necessary. The audience thinks it's ace and so do we and that's good. Our show goes well and everyone is lovely to us. Unfortunately, we're too tired to join Johnny Foreigner, Slow Club and The Mae Shi on the beach for an all night drinking party so we go to our friend's house and lie still on the floor until the morning.
 
Day 3 Hot Club headline Gigwise party @ Ocean Rooms, Sat 18th May

Our second gig is at the Ocean Rooms at the Gigwise party. We turn up for an early soundcheck after a generous fry-up courtesy of our hosts. We're not playing until 10ish, so Matthew and Al go watch Ironman at the cinema and I go and visit some long lost cousins who happen to live round the corner. They're all 10 years older than the last time I saw them. The TV is on and there's a program where adults have to compete in a quiz against these really smart children. All the children are hideous and I hate their parents for ruining their lives.

Anyway, the band on before us seems to completely clear the venue of any audience, so we're relieved when the room fills up again just before we play. It's a lovely show and the crowd are a lot of fun. We finish up, load out and skip merrily into the night.

It's was our third Great Escape festival, and we had a blast as per usual. Until next year, etc x