This weekend was Mutations Festival, and Saturday night’s headliner was local heroes Lambrini Girls. Overall though Brighton felt a bit under represented, with less than 10% given over to local bands. On Friday, you couldn’t have watched both Fickle Friends and Ditz because they were in clashing slots (although they are very different bands). On Saturday Ladylike opened up proceedings at Chalk. Lemonsuckr proved to be so popular that I spent half their set stuck in the queue outside Dust and when I did get in they were struck down with technical difficulties. Because both of the timings of both of those sets, I didn’t manage to get to Alphabet for My Precious Bunny, although I heard good things afterwards, and Opus Kink were on way past my bedtime. Overall though, it was a great festival – they probably needed a few more small stages open in the afternoon before the bigger venues opened up, and the weather was very forgiving, the bill overall was diverse enough to not get boring. Here’s to next year (with hopefully a few more Brighton bands on the bill)
As of last night, Brighton has a new venue! Exciting news, but let’s cut quickly to what often gets quietly glossed over when a “new” pub or venue opens up in Brighton – more often than not, it’s an old pub or venue that’s reopened. As you may have already guessed from its name and our accompanying photo, WaterBear Music Bar – the second venue in town opened by WaterBear Music College – is what most people probably know as Latest Music Bar. It’s actually been Manchester Street Arts Centre since early last year, and people with longer memories might remember it as the original home of the Komedia, Akademia (a bar / venue owned by Brighton uni), or Joogleberry. It’s actually been an entertainment venue of sorts ever since it was first built over 200 years ago as Kentfield Billiard Rooms. (If you want to pick up some interesting Brighton trivia, look up Edwin Kentfield)
Brighton Music Blog 