Words:
Niall Doherty,
JJ Dunning,

Harriet Gibsone

Pics: Mairead Palmer (The Fratellis, Team Waterpolo), Stephen Budd (Dead Kids), Nic Serpell-Rand (We Are Scientists, Late Of The Pier, Young Knives), RaePinx (Cage The Elephant)

Just how do we convey three gig-glorious days of running around

Brighton like a dog sprinting towards the scent of Pete Doherty’s unwashed post-prison backside in words? Well, friends, The Fly writes to the point, dives into the foggy, hazy abyss of memory and puts the hangover off til tomorrow, that’s how. Just try and keep up, yeah? 

So… it’s Thursday and kicking off the weekend, The Laurel Collective are at The Fly and Levi’s® OnesToWatch stage at Audio busying themselves being altogether ace on stage – the six-piece sound like an ADD Mystery Jets, their jittery indie-hip-hop bounce kickstarting the evening, whilst ‘Oh My God’ and ‘I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked’ are the highlights of a solid, if sometimes sub-standard, set of roary punk-pop by Ida Maria. Still at Audio, Johnny Foreigner’s fightpop symphonies are the sign of a band totally on top of their game – ‘’Yr All Just Jealous’ and ‘Eyes Wide Terrified’ trade blows with our ears like two epic Rocky Balboas slugging the hell out of one another. Young Knives headline, the distorto-riff quirk-rock of their underloved second album meaning that the bonkers new-wave post-punk of their debut no longer the highlights of the set. Over at Ocean Rooms, meanwhile, Future Of The Left frontman Falco is busy berating the world, the fact that they’d had all their stuff nicked before the gig and were really fucked off about it perhaps the reason why their always loud, always violent noisiness was even louder and spittle-dusted. Absolutely incredible.

 PIC: Nic Serpell-Rand

Then it’s off to Club NME @ Barfly, where Yeasayer are busy being amazing, ’2080′ sounding massive and all over the place at the same time, and The Ting Tings are celebrating their impending Number One with a rapturously-received set of what one Fly calls art-pop, and another calls karaoke-with-drums. 

 PIC: Nic Serpell-Rand

The next day, We Are Scientists awaken everyone from the previous night’s-induced slumber with an afternoon set at The Fly and Levi’s® OnesToWatch’s BBQ at Audio, ‘The Great Escape’ proving itself an apt side-dish to lumps of free haloumi, whilst they also managed to squeeze in their usual inter-song comedy, impersonating Predator and doing some mum gags. Nice. Later on, The Fratellis’ play an ace set of scuzzy, indie singalongs in a Fly and XFM show at The Dome, whilst down at MTV2’s bash at Concorde 2, White Lies are dispatching the sort of monstrously dark, tuneful Interpol-meets-The-Cure-meets-The-Killers that’ll mean they’ll be headlining next year. At Audio, Cage The Elephant’s anarchic rockabilly is getting the crowd going. Dead Kids hit the stage next and are band of the weekend hands down – ‘Wires’ and ‘Into The Fire’ are mind-blowing electro-epics, whilst frontman Mike Frankel’s stand-off with a security guard (“Get the fuck off my stage!”) win’s the weekend’s most told anecdote. Some bands wouldn’t even bother following them, so at least Late Of The Pier are brave and brilliant – they finish off the night with some synth-heavy disco-stomps.   

 Cage The Elephant PIC: RaePinx

 Late Of The Pier PIC: Nic Serpell-Rand

Onto Saturday, and our livers might be flagging, but our ears aren’t – proceedings are booted skywards with a mid-afternoon beach show from Dead Kids which culminates in them running into the sea, whilst, later on, Times New Viking fail to live up to expectations on DiS’ stage at Digital, meandering through the murky guts of past EPs and new LP ‘Rip It Off’ with sore-throat chanty gusto.

 Dead Kids PIC: Stephen Budd

 Team Waterpolo PIC: Mairead Palmer

They look good next to Team Waterpolo at Audio, though, themselves conceding the fact that they were “fucking useless tonight.” Friendly Fires resurrect our enthusiasm though – ‘

Paris ’ is the dancefloor-decimating highlight – and then it’s down to Horatio’s Bar for the Pavement tumble-rock of Let’s Wrestle. We finish off the weekend with the glacial, skyscraping euphoria of Glasvegas at Komedia, ‘Daddy’s Gone’ the triumphant, singalong climax to our weekend, the best Great Escape yet and, quite possibly, the one and only time we’ll use a battered sausage as a weapon and get away with it…