The Great Escape – Newcastle Academy2 – 31/10/10

Fourth band of the night, The Great Escape at the Academy. A tough little gig actually, not only were TGE on at 1 o’clock on a sunday morning, but they were also competing with a massive Halloween party downstairs. The outcome, unfortunately being nowhere near the audience that Consett’s finest deserves.

Not sure how long we’ve got to keep banging on about this lot before someone sits up and takes notice, probably not much longer, judging by their recent exploits. In July they came 3rd in the Indie final of Live and Unsigned at the o2 arena. A national “battle of the bands” type competition. No small feat, even making it that far, as they had to battle it out in a series of live heats across the country, to even make the final 14, from quite literally, thousands of entries.

So as I squeezed myself up the stairs past the hordes of black bin-bag clad, back-combed, Fosters sucking vampires and zombies, it was actually a blessed relief to get into the academy2 room, where I was greeted by the now familiar swirling guitars of Bennett and Co. cranking it out to the converted. They were just finishing off, Agree to Disagree when I came in, so I was a bit miffed to have missed the beginning, especially as I’d been deliberately killing time, losing money in a back street gambling pit, but thanks to a neatly obtained set list, I realised later with mixed feelings that I’d only missed the opening number, Ludovico Technique, (the open eyed, video brain washing technique used in Clockwork Orange, just in case you were wondering!)

So, (if you turned up on time) the set ran like this;

Ludovico Technique

Agree To Disagree

Lost Time

Enemies

Carry On

Lies

Figures

Breakthrough (Let It Out)

Friction

This Is An End

This is An End, their newest track, never made it on the cracking 5 track Balance EP, we reviewed back in April, but it’s now up on the old myspace page if you want a listen, classic Great Escape, rollercoaster ride. Good news is the boys are back in the studio in the next few weeks so there should be some more new stuff out soon. Which will hopefully include Figures, a dark, haunting, echoey, Banshee-esque, guitar swirl, that would have probably gone down quite well downstairs.

http://www.myspace.com/tgeband