One city, three nights beside the seaside, 14 venues filled with over 100 bands from all over the world and a Drowned in Sound Stage...

This May, Brighton will be taken over by music in much the same way Austin is annually for South By Southwest and Manchester is for In the City. Festival ‘headliners’ include Futureheads, British Sea Power, The Cribs and Drowned in Sound Recordings’ very own Martha Wainwright on the Mojo stage and Metric on the Mtv2 stage.

Aside from all the live music there’s also a bit of a conference thing with talks about understanding and getting into the music biz and for those already in it to discuss things like putting on festivals (Micheal Eavis will be in conversation with Rob Da Bank for instance) and running a label – one of the panels will feature Sean from DiS and the lovely folks from Arts & Crafts.

You have the The Barfly Group (yeah that network of live music clubs) to blame for this three day band-a-thon. We’ve buttered up the powers that be and they’ve given us our very own venue (The Zap Club, right on the seafront) for the Friday night of this inaugural edition of the Great Escape. On our stage will you see VERY SPECIAL GUEST HEADLINERS plus things we heart: Howling Bells, Les Incompetents, Komakino and Jeniferever. Plus you’ll obviously see our drunk faces bobbing up and down behind cd players playing music.

The rest of the festival bill is made of new talent from all around the World including Australia (The Morning After Girls), France (A.S Dragon), Finland (Disco Ensemble), Iceland (Sign), Switzerland (Delilahs), Denmark (Spleen United), Norway (Sereena Maneesh) the US (The Academy Is, Midlake) and more including a focus this year on the very best Candadian young stars including Metric, Buck65, The High Dials, You Say Party! We Say Die! and Controller.Controller. PLUS... the best of British 65daysofStatic, Maccabees, Dartz!, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, Brakes, and Richard Hawley have are amongst the acts confirmed too! If that wasn’t enough each night will also feature parties hosted by some of the most respected labels, DJs and club promoters (we’ll probably get bored and do one of these too!).

The festival takes place from 18th – 20th May 2006. Get your 3-day wristband now for just £35 from www.escapegreat.com.

Metric and Komakino will also play the Barfly – The Great Escape present tour:
May
15 York Fibbers
16 Glasgow Barfly
17 Birmingham Barfly
18 London Barfly
19 Brighton Great Escape (Metric on MTV2 stage)

Tickets for the tour available from barflyclub.com.