Friday 08/10/10 Brighton Live @ Various Venues, Brighton

When it comes to music scenes Brighton has one of the most diverse and strongest. Like most cities in the country there is plenty of venues and every night there are plenty of gigs going on but in Brighton there is a sense community. Small venues help small bands out and people go and see up-and-coming bands. The seaside city has produced a host of bands over the past few years from the indie sounds of The Kooks and The Maccabees, the rocky Blood Red Shoes to the adventurous Bat For Lashes. If it wasn't for the support of their local support they might of struggled to break out of it. The bands always return to pay back the favours.

Brighton Live has been running a few years now, it takes over small venues across the city and hosts free gigs for five days, only local bands play and it not only gives the bands great exposure but it also gives a chance for the attendees to find their new favourite band without having to shell out a fiver to get in. This year the inner city festival has grown with a night at the 500+ capacity Concorde 2 with established bands playing which has boosted the interest in the festival. The five band bill was headlined by Southend's acoustic punk Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly with the evening ending at 4am and it was free.

Having started at 6pm with local bands Jumping Ships and Autumn Red played to a fairly empty room but it started to pick-up as the hotly-tipped The Agitator took to stage.The two-pieces performance was full of energy and attention grabbing moves by the front-man but the lacking quality in the songs outweighed the performance where the novelty wore off quickly.

Following on was Scotland's hero's-in-waiting, Xcerts. They made the most of playing in-front of full crowd who would have left the venue slightly deaf as they played their technical rock loud. There was promise in the performance and the talent shows through but with lack in chorus' the set merged into one. Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly concluded the evening of live music before the DJ's arrived with a set covering material from the self-titled new record as well as the previous two. There was sing-a-longs to the politically charged songs, it is easy to compare him to the new Billy Bragg but his influences range so much further which kept everybody's attention.

Brighton Live is such a great way to help out local music scenes, it's a shame that other cities don't try.