An Evening with First Fifty: Teenage Joans, Tukki and Girl Group.
East London’s best bars and pubs were taken over last week by First Fifty, The Great Escape’s first showcase of their lineup for Brighton’s biggest music festival next May. It was a busy night, with 24 emerging artists playing across eight venues – so, as no invention has been made to help me appear in a few different places at once, I was only able to catch a few of the sets.
Starting off at Oslo at 7:45pm, Teenage Joans takes the stage – a punk duo all the way from South Australia, on UK soil for the first time ever. Sporting boundless energy and a simple set-up – a drum kit and an electric guitar – the vocalist/guitarist, Cahli Blakers, declares that they are “bringing back pop punk, someone has to!” With their up-tempo songs dripping with angst, reminiscent of early Paramore, they just might do it.
We cross the road to Paperdress Vintage, a vintage shop by day, a bar and music venue by night, where we watch Tukki’s 8:25pm set – a pop-soul artist who has a wide smile and angelic, soulful vocals, echoing those of Olivia Dean. Accompanied by a talented band, including a drummer with a smooth R&B style and a shaker to hand, Tukki put on a bewitching performance, doused in red and blue lights. Not only did she play some of her own tracks, a mix of upbeat and mellow, she also performed a cover of SZA’s ‘Open Arms’ that SZA herself would be dumbfounded by.
Setting off again, we walk down the road to our last destination of the night, MOTH Club, where Girl Group is the headline act – and rightly so. Consisting of Katya, Mia, Maria and Thea, all originally from Oslo, and Lil, from Yorkshire, Girl Group is an alt-pop band that prioritises the two most important F’s: feminism and fun.
Combining their individual music styles and preferences, their sound is an eclectic mix of pop, indie-rock, electronica, R&B and more. The five-piece share a heartfelt hug before going on stage where they immediately captivate the audience with not only their unique genre-bending sound, but also their choreography and performance skills – making their half an hour set feel more like a theatrical production than just a gig. It was an unusual and refreshing performance, with each of them taking turns to dance, play the guitar, play the keyboard, or flaunt their vocals centre stage.
With all the quality of a supergroup, Girl Group close their set with ‘Rage Song’ and ‘Yay! Saturday’, two of their most popular tracks, and in return, receive the biggest applause of any unestablished, up-and-coming band I’ve heard.