
Top 9 Brighton Gigs July 2016
Gig gurus Brighton Noise have made the impossible task of choosing gigs in Brighton a bit easier for our readers by picking their 9 best Brighton gigs June 2016!
Day IV @ Green Door Store
The fourth in our successful ‘DAY’ series of music events at The Green Door Store, the simple idea being to throw genre out of the window and have a bloody good time.
Perhaps our best line up yet features a headline performance from the supremely talented lo-fi/jazz/folk hero Nick Hudson and Academy of The Sun, forward thinking indie-rock from Great Pagans and The Hundredth Anniversary, out-there psych from The Soft Walls, Zofff and Sallisss, as well as a long-awaited live return for ex-SHRAG and Blue Minkies local indie-pop legend Stephanie Goodman. Mumdad&TheKids, Speak Galactic and Via Tirana complete an all-round strong day.
Date/ Time: Saturday 2nd July / 2.00 pm
Price: £5.00 adv
Paws/Spook School @ hope & Ruin
Quite possibly the warmest hug of a gig this season, you cannot fail to be utterly delighted by Scottish double-header PAWS and Spook School. PAWS are a three-piece Glasgow indie rock phenomena. They’re touring schedule would put the Ramone’s off. Think a more indiepop Nirvana, and with the best lyrics around.
The Spook School are an Edinburgh indiepop charm offensive. They seem to have been around forever but are still barely 20. It should be said that ‘I’ll Be Honest‘ was this writer’s favourite song of 2013. Support also comes from London 2-piece Slowcoaches.
Date/ Time: 3rd July
Price: £7.70
Flamingods @ Hope & Ruin
Take a look at that picture of Flamingods. What do you think they sound like? Some bands come cloaked in mystery, Flamingods come cloaked ready for action.
A Bahraini/English all-consuming percussive hypnotic jam. They apparently formed out of an 8-hour jam at an ATP. Support comes from Brighton’s, err, brightest psyche young turks native ray. Who somehow get better with every performance. And kindred spirits of all things electronic, odd, ethereal, and sumptuous Shinamo Moki. This is the tightest encapsulation of the exciting South East psyche scene you will see all summer.
Date/ Time: Fri 8th
Price: £8.80
Bunny Wailer & The Solomonic Reggaestra @ Concorde 2
Hot on the heels of Lee Scratch Perry’s triumphant performance at the same venue back in March, the potentially more revered Bunny Walier will tread the same boards.
A childhood friend of Bob Marley, he was part of The Wailing Wailers (later The Wailers) with Marley and Peter Tosh in the early to late 60’s. As Marley increasingly became the focus of the band, Bunny made the decision to go solo, subsequently vindicated by a massively successful solo career both commercially and critically and three Grammy Awards for Best Reggae Album in 1991, 1995 and 1997.
Date/ Time: Monday 11 July/ 7.00pm
Price: £22.50
Suuns @ Patterns
We did an interview with Suuns fellow Montreal dwellers Braids recently, where it became immediately apparent that the tsunami wave of ridiculously proficient and prolific Canadian acts we’ve seen over the last ten years is no accident.
A music scene where promising bands and grass roots venues receive funding that keeps them writing and on the road is key. Bands get space to develop outside label pressure to sell, sell, sell. Suuns have benefited from this, no doubt. The slightly generic post-punk of earlier albums has developed into what a Kid A fan wishes Radiohead were doing right now.
Date / Time: Thursday 14 July/ 7.00pm
Price: £13.50 adv
Basement/Dinosaur Pile-Up @ the Haunt
Continuing the theme of nineties longing is Basement and Dinosaur Pile Up. Basement are about as cool as it’s possible to be whist sounding a bit like a band your dad would form, they even have shades of gruff punk about them… Except they are not a dad-band, but they are still great, but dadish, does this make sense?
Leeds heroes Dinosaur Pile-Up are a much more lairy phenomena, their riffs are matched only by their choruses. Support comes from their incredibly stylish Swedish touring partners The Sun Days. Smashing line-up this, definitely get there early!
Date/ Time: Tue 19th
Price: £15.40
Ned’s Atomic Dustbin @ Concorde 2
What an odd world we live in. If you are any younger than 32 years old there is no way in hell you will even know who ned’s Atomic Dustbin are yet they are playing Concorde 2!?!??!
They were one of the key Grebo bands in the early nineties. They weren’t here, then they were very very big, then they all but disappeared. The music has stood the test of time, providing you can handle the sheer early-ninetiesness of the overly compressed production. Which given you were alive through brickwalling, means you can!
Date/ Time: Sat 23rd
Price: £23
Wild Beasts @ The Old Market
I’m not sure many present thought the wilfully experimental, slightly shrill, indie-types sandwiched between Bon Iver & No Age at The Pressure Point during 2008’s Great Escape would go on to be the UK’s foremost and cerebral pop outfits but through constant evolution that’s what has happened to Wild Beasts.
2009’s ‘Two Dancers’ was the game-changer, streamlined and funky like a Smiths for the Facebook generation. Impressively for a band so accomplished at a relatively young point in their career 2011’s ‘Smother’ and 2014’s ‘Present Tense’ used subtle variations of theme alongside their traditional vocal interplay.
They’re back in town for a two-night run ahead of the release of forthcoming album ‘Boy King.’
Date / Time: Thursday 28 & Friday 29 July/ 7.30pm
Price: £16.00
Cloud @ The Prince Albert
Psych-rock has exploded across the world going in a short space of time from a ridiculed niche-concern to the Glastonbury main-stage and festivals dedicated specifically to the form. Blame Tame Impala.
As with any genre that undergoes such a rapid rate of commercial expansion, everyone associates with the term to the point that it becomes meaningless. Brighton outfits have not been immune. Luckily for us, reclusive local types Cloud’s electro-psych will pre and post date that explosion, their extra-sensory, enveloping live shows are a thing of local lore.
Support from freewheeling improv types Kosmos 954 and Sleeping Creatures. See them all before they play “Brighton PsychFest 2017” at The Amex.
Date/ Time: Sunday 31 July/ 8.00 pm
Price: £4.00