Breakout Festival - Brighton Racecourse - 26.09.2015

It's not often you associate Brighton with heavy metal & hard rock, but from going along to the Second annual Breakout Festival it's quite clear that they go together as well as ice-cream and beach walks (well, the type that leave you happy, tired, and somewhat deaf). It's also quite clear from having attended this years event that the organisers know how to operate an efficient band-packed event, and that the local scene is filled to the brim with friendly folk out to have a splendid time of it all. And by "all" I mean 14 bands for the outrageously low price of £27.50 (including booking fee), starting at 10:40 and finishing almost 12 music-soaked and fist-pumped hours later.

Opening up was We Deny, a quality pop-punk outfit that managed to pull people in through a combo of ridiculous amounts of energy for that time of the morning and a clear talent for catchy tunes. It was "light, but filling" in the best of ways, getting my feet tapping and face smiling before the first bite of coffee. Quite frankly, if you're under 25 and have even the slightest interest in being happy about things, then put this on your car stereo and just drive off to adventure.

And, whilst it was impressive being that happy at 10:40am, hats go off to Skint Circus for being so utterly pissed off at 11:20 when they rolled out their thick, sweaty, and highly energetic take on hardcore punk with breakdowns, beatdowns, and throwdown flying over the places almost as much as their singer did. Their lead guitarist didn't move much though, he just stood there in a suit jacket looking unnervingly cool. A band with that much anger has a lot to give, and I look forward to hearing more from them.

Next up was Seething Akira, a band who appear to have bridge the existential gap between Enter Shikari and The Midnight Beast. From their jolly intro of "Hello" to their rave-metal bouncing noise, this was everything you could ask for from a band that have one front man who looks like a young Alan Moore in a Lionel Richie t-shirt and another that you could envision your sister politely introducing to your mother. By song two they were both in the crowd, giving things a runaround - kicking off a moshpit conga line, sneaking a cheeky go on the bouncy castle near the stage, all the time accompanied by blood-pumping party revolution rawk. All of this meant that when they asked the question "Have you all had a nice time?" and gave the quippy "That makes us very happy" after the cheer, it came across as honest rather than affected, and just added to the fun factor that was washing over everyone. They have a single coming out, get it and then try to see them live.

The Gospel Youth had a tough act to follow, and their more laid back, radio friendly, alt-rock approach was a good switch of pace from what had come before. Touches of Gaslight Anthem, the odd bit of Fall Out Boy, mostly just solid rock played in a no nonsense fashion. Whilst their look was the most regimented and sculpted of the day so far they were perfectly willing to just let the music and the lyrics do the work for them, so whilst they didn't get much motion out in the slowly growing crowd there were clearly a lot of ears open taking it all in.

Another set, another change in style, something that seems to be the make of Breakout with a very broad range of the church of rock on display. By Definition were the next brotherhood on display, and they had come to give some very hard lessons on the benefits of blues based, groove heavy, slow and steady heavy rock. It was slow, it was steady, it was raunchy, and it was delivered with the restraint of a grizzly bear. Pretty much instantly everyone in the area started smelling of strong liquor and began tapping their hands, feet, heads, and assorted other appendages as the growling, swirling, bass-to-the-guts overload was hammered out.

Zoax were up next and rapidly pitched their tent as a screamo version of The Pixies with a heavy sound that saw more peaks and valleys than a bus going off the cliff in Wales. They also almost had the same visual impact on the stage at times, as all three of the guitarists were throwing their instruments around with so much abandon their mothers would have been worried someone would lose their whole head. Desperate to the crowd moving, their singer Adam stalked the pit like a demon whilst throwing his heart and lungs into every lyric. Not to sure on the safety of bringing a cabled mic into the thick of it, but no-one got hurt and it certainly added to the drama. Then he came over to the table we were sat at and he pinched my hat, so that's one to tell the Godparents once these guys make it big.

Then, for lack of a better term, Black Tongue happened. They just walked on stage, started playing something that sounded like five doom and death metal tracks all at once, hated everything in front of them for even existing for about half an hour, and then headed off. Occasionally they introduced a song with some horror movie sound track but other than that it was just "bang and gone". They even had a guest vocalist for one track that just walked on, screamed, and headed off. Like it, don't like it: they clearly did not have one fuck to give regards your opinion of what they did. Obviously the people who were into it loved it, whilst everyone else seemed a bit bemused. I'm assuming that was the intention. The only down side to their set was the sound techs not being up to task, as there was feedback and pops through out, which was a shame for an otherwise precision performance.

Representing the kind of  poetic, polemic, and curiously swinging hardcore that seems to grow in London, TRC bounded on with the goal of kicking up a riot and ensuring everyone had fun doing it. It was shouty, it was bouncy, it had riffs and energy you could listen to for days. It also had the line of "If you've got some energy, do it. If not, then get to the gym" and the request for the pit to get "a bit like strictly come dancing". The thrash-ier bits were intense, and all over, it got everyone up for a good time that showed the old school have still got it.



Shunning the simple pleasures of music, like tune or melody or even apparent structure, Heck (aka Baby Godzilla) landed next and dropped out a lot of sounds in about half the time you would think it humanly possible. Some might call it mathcore, or extreme jazz, or "all the notes ever, sometimes twice", or "Cream force-fed Napalm Death from birth"  but mostly it was just an exhilarating exploration of what you can do when you say 'no' to almost every rule ever. I'm not going to claim to understand it, but it was compelling and enjoyable like some intricate puzzlebox, especially with the bands determination to hammer their instruments and play them anywhere other than the stage. It was also impressive to watch as there was no-one obviously holding the songs together, but regardless of how far everyone flew off in which direction it kept on coming back to one central point, Oh yeah, and they hate microphone stands. I saw three of them laid waste in the first track alone.

Martyr Defiled hit the stage next, playing something that sounded halfway between death metal and blastbeat-based hardcore. Sadly the performance almost instantly got hit by bad sound, so nothing came across with as much bite as it should have, in the first track. The sense of terror was further eroded by their vocalist sounding so amiable and friendly when talking between tracks, as someone who sounds that devilish when singing, should not instantly strike you as someone you would share cocoa with. It was technically proficient but the performance side wasn't theatrical or passionate enough to really grab up and hold you in its fist.

Finishing up the last of the daylight were The Qemist, a raging slab of power is pitched halfway between The Prodigy and Pendulum, but with enough of their own sound to not sound like a dodgy knock-off. From the off they had everyone bouncing to their uplifting sounds and welcoming stage presence. A couple of the callouts and platitudes to the crowd may have been a tad bit cheesy, but everyone was smiling too much to be offended and they all knew it was meant well. Still, you can't argue with the crowd and they managed to get a huge response as everyone rocked out to their rebel party anthems.

And then night was upon us, and as the stage lights kicked in We Are The Ocean took the stage and played something halfway between alt-rock and dad-rock. It was good for what it was, including a brave attempt at Dazed and Confused (a fifty year old song for a crowd that was mostly under twenty five), it's just that it was too much of a change from what had gone on before through the day. The crowd dwindled visibly, the cold started to suck at people's energy, and though there were moments that landed some response from those left behind, they never landed well enough to convince me they were the right pick for that point in the day.

When Sikth got on stage there was a resurgence in numbers, mostly from the bar, as this was clearly a band that a lot of people had been looking forward to see. Whilst I wasn't aware of the band before today I can clearly see why people like their brand of prog-metal: it's loud, it's fast, it's filled with virtuosity, and it's almost certain to piss off your parents. It was also a highly energetic and frantic performance, which got picked up by the crowd and resulted in a lot of bodies thrashing around & building up a sweat. Personally I liked the spoken-word piece the most, as it was totally unexpected and yet fitted in perfectly with everything else before and after, and a fair chunk of the audience dug it as well. For a band doing their first gig of the year in September, they had clearly been doing more than just practising their tunes. If you are of the progressive music persuasion, then grab a ticket to whenever they play within travelling distance of you.

The day was drawn to a close by Deaf Havana and their brand of alternative rock, which sadly seemed to miss the mark of what the crowd were after in a similar vein to We Are The Ocean if the madly diminished audience was anything to go by. Those who stayed had a lovely time, listening to some heartfelt tunes and rocking singalongs, but for a lot of people it was either time for bed after an incredibly long day in the sun or just not their thing after the prog-metal blowout that had hit them before.

Still, with that much range and at that price, you can't have everything your way. However, you can have an incredibly well-organised and perfectly sized event, completed by a pleasant crowd and utterly pleasant staff.  They was also the bonus of all the bands hanging out in the audience, so you could be both encouraged that they are actually real people who got up and did it, as well as get the chance to go up and say "thanks for the music". Book your tickets for 2016, because it's going to be worth it.

The World After Alt-Fest

For those who don't know the crowd-funded, alternative music focused musical event, Alt-Fest, was cancelled on the 1st of August, two weeks before the event was scheduled to go ahead. In the run up to the announcement there were plenty of rumours as to the cause, and since the cancellation there have been plenty of theories as to what did or didn't cause it to go ahead. Fingers are being pointed, rumours are being circulated, lines in the sands are being drawn and tombs of truth are being written.

That is something I'm not really interested in, as however you cut it the official version of "not enough money was available for the event to go ahead" is (from all sources) the reason it got pulled. What I am interested in is what it holds for the future of the UK alternative scene and UK festivals, because that is going to be the more lasting legacy than 7,500 people having to find something else to do for a weekend.

There Will Problems With Funding
Whilst the Alt-Fest Kickstarter campaign was not the only source of funds for the event (it only raised 3.6% of the events estimated budget from 5.6% of the required audience) it was the first a lot of people heard about the event, and a key part of a lot of the 'a festival for the fans' promotion that followed it. Regardless of the validity of the campaign a lot of people are considering it a 'kickstarter event' and a 'crowdfunded festival', one of the first (and certainly the most high profile of its kind) in the UK. And it failed to provide the goods that were promised, which means that any future attempts to do something similar are now tainted with that failure. The collapse of Alt-Fest has reduced the viability of this funding method for a range of future events, Anyone now trying to go a similar path for the next couple of years is going to be meet with a cry of 'you mean like that event that got pulled a fortnight before it happened?' and a reduced willingness to put their hands in their pockets to get seed money.

It's also going to cause knock-on problems for people trying to arrange other events regardless of the funding sources. Venues, performers, and other suppliers are going to be harder to convince of the reliability of similar events, so you're looking at greater problems of putting a show together to promote as people are going to need bigger bonds (ie more costs) or just won't take the booking in the first place. This goes for the dull things as well: it is always possible to find an act to headline your show, but you try and put on a show without toilet facilities. And this is before a reduction in ticket sales from the lose in faith from the public of the show actually going ahead, especially if its on the scale of Alt-Fest.

Expect A Reduction In The Ambition Of Other Projects
One of the things that caused a buzz about Alt-Fest was it's pure audacity: a three day long event with multiple stages and headline bands that were internationally known, even by people outside of the core market. The schedule was spectacular and breath taking. It was the proverbial "too good to be true". And as that turned out to literally be the case there is going to be a decrease in people trusting in spectacular and breath taking lineups, outside of established events. I actually think you're going to see a toning down of bills at established events for a while, or at least a lack of anything outside of their established norm.

This is a shame as there was something admirable in the gutsyness of going for something so big, but at the same time it will have the benefit of encouraging people to start small and grow from there. It has, in a most brutal of fashions which I wish could have been avoided, shown that you need more than a great idea and a willingness to put in hard effort to do something like this. It has proven that you need to have multiple skills and knowledges and experiences to make these things happen, that there is a reason that many of the major festivals are run by people more worried about the money than the art. A number of people were speculating it would be the Alternative Scene's Reading, Glastonbury, or Download which was a nice idea but missed the fact that all of these started small and then got big over a number of years. It also possibly showed why people don't do such mixed up shows as Alt-Fest aimed for.

Event Bills Will Stick To Being Conservative
The principle of booking such widely divergent bands as The Dead Kennedys, Zeromancer, Arch Enemy,  Front 242, Amen and Petrol Bastard is a noble one, and reflects the variety of listening habits that a lot of people have (as well what people will put up with in a night club). However it doesn't reflect what people like when they put a lot of money into going to a music festival, as what it appears they want is a lot of variations on the same thing. When people go to events (which they do a lot, as the already quite full UK "alternative" festival calendar shows) they want to be in a more specific mind set and a more specific world, they don't want to be challenged outside of a certain safety zone. So whilst it is fair to say that Gary Numan, Arch Enemy, and Marilyn Manson can pull 5000 people each it is far harder to find 15,000 people that like all three and proven to be even harder to find that many that wanted to see them on the same bill.

This is why most major (and many, many, middle and minor) events tend to have a relatively similar band listing: it works and it gets people to turn up in the numbers needed. There are always going to be outliers (Status Quo at Download, Chas and Dave at Sonisphere, Metallica at Glastonbury), but even then there is tends to be a one-step logical link between them. "Its alternative" isn't that logical a leap, at least not in the numbers needed, as "Alternative" is a crap definition of music or scene as its what it's against rather than what its for. Additionally there isn't that much of an "alternative scene" in the UK, just a lot of smallish sized scenes that have a lot of people who are part of more than one. They are distinct tribes, they just share their population with a lot of people. That does not mean they are all going to join together under a vague banner.

With Alt-Fest having tried to put on such an eclectic spread and not getting the numbers other events are less likely to give things an honest go at a mix up. You will still have outliers, but they will be less obvious and less overt (NB Glastonbury may seem like an exception but its booking of outliers is part of its thing, mostly to give the BBC a story), and you are certainly not going to get anyone willing to put as much cash behind an event that isn't specifically targeting an identifiable and developed scene.


And thats the bad news, but there is also this:


People now know where things can go wrong
The collapse of Alt-Fest has, as said above, in a most brutal of fashions which I wish could have been avoided shown people what can go wrong with an event. But the collapse is going to be pulled apart from every direction, for every angle, and by far brighter and more informed minds than mine. Lessons will be learned, pitfalls will be highlighted, the same mistakes will not be made again, and new events will be forged from it.

It has proved that there is a taste for Alt-Fest
Selling 7500 tickets is no easy feat, and it cannot be done unless there is a demand for a new event on the UK festival calendar that fills some kind of gap that wasn't seen until now. That gap is now visible, and more importantly it's been proven that there is money around to fill that gap. Where there is money there is people who want to make money, and the Alternative scene has always proven itself to be very entrepreneurial because it's mostly founded by people going and doing things for themselves. There is no apathy in terms of festivals, things just didn't work with this one.

Which leads to this:
A different version of Alt-Fest will happen
I doubt it will start as big, or be marketed in the same way, or be as wide ranged as Alt-Fest wanted to be, but someone is going to look at everything that happened and go "I think I could make it work...". In fact I expect several someone's are going to give it a shot, regardless of the doom and gloom posted above. And it will be glorious, and people will have a great time, and it will be around for a while as these things tend to do so (or at least you don't really remember the ones that don't).

Not much solace to the organisers and ticket holders of this event, but still something positive to come out of it all.