The final day of TGE 2016 and the bands are sounding as fresh as ever – even if our team are feeling the effects of a weekend of venue hopping. We catch some great sets from Lusts, Porridge Radio and Chastity Belt in the afternoon, before Tiny Ruins and MONEY kick off the last string of evening shows.

Lusts, Horatio’s
On a rainy, windswept afternoon we walk the length of the pier to watch Leicester’s Lusts play to a full house at Horatio’s. Wearing their influences proudly, specifically New Order and Echo & The Bunnymen, brothers Andy and James Stone make effortlessly catchy guitar-pop with nods to shoegaze, new-wave and Britpop. What really sets them apart, though, isn’t their frame of reference but the quality of their material. ‘Sometimes’ and ‘Illuminations’ could easily pass for lost classics from the eras they’re mining. “I can’t really tell you what it’s about,” says the reticent singer of the latter, but its blissed-out, psychedelic chorus might offer some clues. As the end of the set nears, our frontman leaps onto a table that improbably supports both him and a speaker stack for a very tense moment or two. Anthemic without ever straying into the middle of the road, Lusts are a joy to watch. (LM)

Porridge Radio, Bar Rogue
Of all the bands in Brighton at the moment, Porridge Radio stand out due to the inevitable sense of joy they bring to every gig. Their youthful exuberance is evident in band-leader Dana Margolin’s infectious energy and the bobbing and yelping (Dana’s phrase) of Georgina Statt, yet the tunes show some really strong songwriting. Here the band prove to be a tight and talented bunch, keeping the musical momentum by walking a tightrope between tense neurosis and wanton abandon. Spiritually, they are more riot-girl, punk rock with brains. Half geek-zone, half family-of-fun, Porridge Radio are a band that bring the biggest of smiles to our faces whenever they play. (JS)

Flamingods, Brighton Youth Centre
A lo-fi Goat might be the closest comparison for Flamingods, who have one of the most ethnically diverse sounds around, using instruments from (we’re led to believe) Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia, Turkey, Japan and Tanzania. They played on the Alt Escape in Brighton Youth Centre, which was also hosting some kind of kids’ gymnastics class that day. The sound quality wasn’t perfect, but they filled the room with so much energetic joy that this soon became almost entirely irrelevant. Bring your own booze, two drummers, a sax player, a psychedelic light show, a percussive free-for-all, a singer with a twirly thing on top of his hat. What’s not to like? We even got a free sticker. (GR)

Chastity Belt, Hope & Ruin
Seattle’s Chastity Belt have been at The Great Escape all weekend, playing their first show on Thursday night, and this afternoon they’re finishing their festival duties (and their UK tour) by headlining Love Thy Neighbour’s Alternative Escape party in the Hope & Ruin’s main bar. Starting with the slow build of ‘Drone’, Julie Shapiro’s lyrics are more cutting (“He was just a man / Trying to teach me something”) than the gentle ebb and flow of the music suggests. In case the rowdy room, a mix of festival goers and passing stag and football parties, miss their sexual politics ‘Cool Slut’ (“Ladies it’s OK / To be slutty”) makes them more explicit, all delivered in a relaxed web of weaving guitar lines. (SH)

Aldous Harding, Patterns Upstairs
Rumour had reached us that the New Zealand singer-songwriter had a difficult set yesterday, and so it comes as something of a relief to report that today’s more intimate, early evening show passed without incident. “Sorry, I’m way down here,” comes a voice from nowhere as the gathered crowd tip-toe and crane their necks to glimpse the Auckland folk singer seated in the performance area. Aside from her uniquely peculiar voice, what makes Aldous Harding such a captivating performer is the way in which she seems to engage with her own material; songs leave her body like exorcisms. “I’m as happy as I’ll ever be, believe me,” she trills. Quite. (LM)

Tiny Ruins & Hamish Kilgour, Sallis Benney Theatre
Although New Zealand’s Tiny Ruins have managed to remain largely under the radar, anyone fortunate enough to stumble upon Hollie Fullbrook’s delicate, arresting folk will attest to her gift as a songwriter. It’s for this reason we ensured we were amongst the handful who had gathered to watch her perform, first on her own, and then with fellow New Zealander and founding member of cult band The Clean (a group integral to what became known as the Dunedin sound in the early 80s). Cutting a lonely figure, Hollie Fullbrook fingerpicks her way through ‘Me At The Museum You In the Winter Gardens’ and a few more before introducing Hamish Kilgour to provide percussion for the remainder of the set. Rich with the bucolic imagery of home, they draw on material from joint album, ‘Hurtling Through’, including one of two W.B. Yeats poems set to original music. (LM)

MONEY, Sallis Benney Theatre
Coming onstage ahead of his band and opening with a confession, MONEY’s Jamie Lee is every bit the bar-room raconteur: “I keep losing girlfriends. Does anyone else have that problem?” It’s not long before he’s talking in wild tangents: failed attempts to quit drinking, nights out with ‘crack-heads’, Doritos – all whilst dispatching hecklers with the assurance of a seasoned stand-up. MONEY have been winning the favour of critics and audiences alike for some time but what enables them to transcend their indie-rock peers is Lee’s devastating turn of phrase. “I’m not ashamed of what I’m doing, but I’m ashamed of what I’ve done,” comes the profligates lament. Like countless others who have gone in search of dark truths, Lee knows there’s poetry in destruction, and sometimes, some of the best lines are at the bottom of the bottle. (LM)

We Are The City, Brighthelm Centre
It’s gone midnight now and we’re entering the final, messy hours of a particularly rewarding Great Escape year. The few remaining open venues are understandably rammed but we opt for the reliably spacious Brighthelm once again, in time for Vancouver alt-pop trio We Are The City. In our own exhausted state, it’s hard to tell how much attention the audience are giving the band’s herky-jerky, stop-start songs, but leader Cayne McKenzie’s high-pitched voice cuts through the hubbub as he stabs at his keyboard. Drummer Andy Huculaik wrestles with his coursing energy, leaping to his feet at every opportunity given as he clatters through ‘Cheque Room’ and ‘Kiss Me Honey’. If we’d been listening more closely to songs like thumping finale ‘Baptism’ we might have twigged how God-fearing their lyrics are but in the moment we just dance. (SH)

Essaie Pas, Komedia Studio
And now, the end is near. It’s nearly 2 o’clock in the morning and we’re still standing (just) so we stumble down to where our weekend began, the Komedia Studio, for the final band in the programme, Montreal’s hard electronic duo Essaie Pas. The air is thick with dry ice and flashes of bright red, deep blue and harsh white, as Marie Davidson and Pierre Guerineau summon up body-shock dance tracks of crisp, pulsing electro, mixing live and cut-up vocals. The pair sings in French-Canadian so our attempts to note down song titles fail, the pen sliding off the page as we slide down the walls. Their final number sees one last energetic raver dragged from the stage before the lights go up. Is it bedtime now? (SH)

The Great Escape, Saturday 21st May 2016
Words by Gary Rose, Jon Southcoasting, Liam McCreesh and Stuart Huggett
Photos by Jon Southcoasting

The SOURCE team covered all three days of The Great Escape 2016: check out our reviews from Thursday and Friday. We’ve also got a big photo gallery here.