So, that was Mutations Festival, where a Beastie Boy packed out Chalk to the busiest I’ve ever seen it, where the Green Door Store got a leak (get well soon GDS!), and where most people made last minute changes their plans to try and avoid Storm Austin (or was it Storm Beolo?) – weather so bad that even more of the West Pier fell in the sea.
Hutch opened the festival for us, winning over an early doors crowd with their twang pop, packing on to a tiny stage at Revenge. It’s impossible not to like Hutch – a ray of sunshine to banish the wind and rain briefly. Later in the day the weather eased off a little and we made it along to Daltons just in time for M. Woodroe’s set. Fresh from the release last month of The Treatment of Fractures EP last month on Venn Records, they played one of the weekend’s most intense sets we saw. We also had Opal Mag on our schedule for Friday night, but they had to pull out, which meant that we didn’t have to leave early to see Working Men’s Club, with visuals provided by the legendary Chris ‘Innerstrings’ Tomsett, whose work has improved many gigs by local acts
On Saturday afternoon we saw Big Long Sun at the Prince Albert. A joyous riot of sound, which Jamie Broughton and his band make look effortless. Every time I see them I overhear people in the crowd won over by them, which if it continues – and there’s no reason it shouldn’t – means that they’ll be huge before you know it. Unfortunately choosing Big Long Sun meant missing out on Snayx, who I’ve not seen in far too long. It also meant missing out on Plantoid at Alphabet, but that was OK, because only a little while later they played a second set of the day at Chalk. Making a huge sound worthy of the biggest stage at the festival, their blend of psych, prog and even a bit of latin too was the perfect segue to the bigger acts later on.
You might have spotted some Mutations Festival previews – Everyone’s very excited about Mike D, and if you got in early enough a festival ticket would only be a tenner or so more than the good tickets to go and see him in London. You get a lot of bang for your buck at Mutations. The other big names – Fat Dog, Squid and Dove Ellis are not to be sniffed at either. But even if you were a member of one of the worlds most influential hip hop acts, you still haven’t earned a mention on Brighton Music Blog. Before this week we’d spotted Big Long Sun and Hutch on the bill, but this week’s final wave of announcements brough loads more Brighton bands onto the line up, so here’s a shoutout for M.Woodroe, Maximilian, Opal Mag, Oral Habit, The Stanford Family Band, Snayx, Plantoid and Deary (who aren’t all Brighton based but Dottie has been spotted behind the counter at the Bella Union shop and various gigs in town, which is enough for me).
The EP was produced by Bobby Smiles, who’s an artist in his own right as well as a producer. “He’s amazing to work with – Some of us played in Tin Man so we worked with him on those recordings, and Charlie and Owen also play in Soft Top, and they worked with him too. He was on Our Family Dog a few years ago as well. He’s got around, but he’s also one of the nicest guys. He’s recording a lot of Brighton bands at the moment.” It feels like there’s a really strong Brighton Scene at the moment – you’ve mentioned bands you and Bobby Smiles are linked with, Flip Top Head are touring with Ideal Living, you go and see one band and the first three or four rows are full of members of other bands. It feels like the Brighton scene is the strongest it’s been in a long time. How does it feel from your perspective? “For us it feels like we’re just hanging out with mates. We’re really lucky, we started gigging just after lockdown and were ready to go once everything opened up again. We played gigs every three days for the first four months, but we weren’t the only ones – everyone had that energy and hunger to get out and about. You meet people and everyone becomes friends and then you’re all just doing it together. If they’re not playing in the bands, they’re working at the venues, at the bar or booking the shows. Also you play with loads of bands and everyone inspires each other, and that’s a beautiful thing. You go and see a band like Ideal living at Green Door before Christmas, and seeing those guys, you’re like Wow, there’s something really amazing going on. The competition is FIERCE! – We’ve been lucky enough to go and play elsewhere and meet a bunch of other bands that are local to those areas and there’s such great vibes, but then you come back to Brighton and there’s things like Mumfest and 234 – the standard of bands in Brighton is so high. We’ve got to try and be the best we can be. And everyone’s doing their own thing, it’s not like everyone’s overlapping, they’re supporting each other, it’s just wonderful. There’s always new bands cropping up as well. Van Zon are the new ones to watch. And Moon Idle (who supported Van Zon on the night we met up). We played at Mutations, and they played just before us. They’re a really cool band. One of those ones where you see a band and you say to yourself give this band a bit of time and they could be huge.”
