The Great Escape: Saturday's Best

Following an excellent Friday night, team Best Fit set out for the final day of this year’s Great Escape. Here, Lauren Down and Josh Hall give their picks.

Drop Out Venus

After a less than inspiring start to their set Drop Out Venus quickly became one of the most promising acts of the weekend. Carving out intensely twisted numbers from blistering guitar solos and thrashing drums, the Depford three piece are lead by singer Iva Moskovich’s intoxicating vocals and captivating stage presence. LD

Haim

LA based, sister fronted four-piece Haim caught our attention out at SXSW earlier this year where their closing festival performance showcased some seriously virtuoso guitar handling but their sound, and set were very divergent -markedly jutting from one influence to another. Tonight, well they just about blew the roof off of Audio. Everything was pulled together perfectly, roaring classic americana riffs driven by taught rhythms and half spoken, breathy vocals that find themselves somewhere in between Annie Lennox and Ani DiFranco. LD

Seams

The Corn Exchange is The Great Escape’s most intimidating venue. With a capacity of more than 1,000 and about as much atmosphere as a derelict air hangar, the room is likely to be a challenge for any artist – let alone one as personally unassuming as Seams. It is testament, then, to both the quality of his frenetic, arpeggiated music and to his charm, that the artist managed to get even the fancy dress crowd dancing. On one of Brighton’s best soundsystems it suddenly becomes easy to see Seams filling venues of this size on his own in the not too distant future. JH

Halls

Closing a festival is a double-edged sword. The Green Door Store was over capacity for South London artist Halls, and the crowd seemed evenly split between those who were there because they liked him, and those who were there because he was the only thing to see. Thankfully, Halls was on the best form of his thus far short career; his normally delicate, ecclesiastical electronica was transformed into thundering, bass-driven barrages given life by a startlingly good drummer. An exciting next step for a promising artist, and a fitting end to this year’s Great Escape. JH