This year’s On The Beach festival closes tonight Sunday with a rare visit from Moby. Last night (Saturday) was the equally surprising and delightful return of Brighton favourites, the Maccabees.
This year’s run of gigs on the beach has been very successful. Most the OTB events were completely sold out, and the organisation of the events was in our opinion superb. Praise due to the organisers and all the excellent staff working the events, with a special fist punch for the dancing security guy working the pit whenever we were there!
Saturday’s all-dayer began with local heroes Lime Garden, a female four-piece that provided youth and energy and we were suitably impressed. They also brought a pretty good crowd into the arena early on in the day, which just illustrated the strength of support they’ve built in a relatively short period of time.
Second on the bill was someone a little older, but had already established a deep well of affection amongst music afficionados. Badly Drawn Boy seemed initially nervous and slightly frustrated by the wind on stage and trouble tuning his guitar, but soon got into the swing of things. It later emerged that his dear mother had passed away only a couple of weeks before, and as he recounted with refreshing honesty, that had affected him deeply. Nonetheless, his songs have the power to move with a particular favourite being Silent Sigh, which sounded just as beautiful as ever.
Next up were Ash, who started with a run of great singles in the 1990s but are still recording and releasing powerful records today. This big-sounding trio brought the rock to the stage and really got the rapidly-filling arena moving. They were clearly delighted to be back on Brighton beach, for the first time since their Girl From Mars video shoot, and that song, plus the gorgeous Shining Light, got the audience singing along.
Anna Calvi provided an initially more pensive set of soundscapes, but with a stature that grew and grew through her excellent set, she showcased both her guitar dexterity and her incredible operatic vocals on songs like Don’t Beat The Girl Out Of My Boy. Anna’s three-piece assuredly won over a bundle of new fans with this set.
Next up were some of the ‘bigger guns’, starting with Miles Kane, totally at home on the festival stage, and carrying a North-West swagger and confidence that reminded this writer of the Gallagher brothers, for better or worse. But Miles Kane brings his own special style and the On The Beach crowd were also enthused by another great performance, comprising songs both old and new.
Editors are perhaps best known for their first two albums, which is a shame as they’re now about to release album number 8 and at On The Beach they showcased a range of songs from across their career. This is a great 6-piece band with a big cosmic sound, and they captured the audience’s attention and sent a lot of arms into the air in what was by now a packed arena, with a powerful and totally engaging set. There is a lot of overlap between Maccabees and Editors fans, and much of the audience knew and loved this band’s songs, which got feet moving, voices singing and hearts pumping.
Headliners the Maccabees then came on stage at 9 o’clock and were clearly overjoyed to be back in what feels much like their home town (even though in reality they came here to study and just stuck around). As Orlando Weeks told us from the stage, this felt very much like their audience, with people they knew, and people they know who we all know. This crowd was very much like a home crowd and welcomed them accordingly.
The Maccabees had actually called it a day around a decade ago after four great albums, but last year got back together again for some big gigs, and now this beach festival. Orlando again noted that they weren’t initially sure they would carry on but had started to write songs again because “that’s just what bands that get together do”. The band played one of the new songs to emerge from their reformation, and to these ears the new song sounded every bit as great as any they have produced up to now. Guess we’ll see where that goes.
The rest of the set comprised songs from the albums, for a kind of greatest hits collection that let the band exemplify the skill and energy they bring to the stage. The audience loved them and responded keenly to the calls from Felix to put their arms in the air. Certainly looking on from the stage, there seemed to be a sea of smiles. Hopefully, we will see and hear much more from the reconstituted Maccabees now, and we’d be keen to welcome them back to Brighton.
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The Maccabees, Editors, Mikes Kane, Anna Calvi, Ash, Badly Drawn Boy and Lime Garden played On The Beach on Saturday 25th July.
Words and Photographs from Jon Southcoasting.
