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The Great Escape 2025: Meet the artists playing the Ticketmaster New Music showcases
Get to know the hotly-tipped artists playing The Deep End on Thursday afternoon and Soundwaves on Friday evening for our TGE showcases
The Great Escape is just on the horizon. After a long lead up of TGE Presents teaser showcases in the capital, the main event down in Brighton is nearly here: the coastal gyratory of music genres pouring out of every possible venue – makeshift or not – like pubs, clubs, shops, pop-up stages, you name it.
There’s no need to formulate a meticulous itinerary or scramble from venue to venue dodging rabid seagulls dive-bombing for your wares however, as our Ticketmaster New Music stages will again be putting on a fine roster of acts on the rise.
This year, both showcases take place in the same vicinity on the beach – The Deep End on Thursday afternoon and Soundwaves on Friday evening. With the two stages being merely a stone’s throw away from one another, and the next big things on the bill, there’s no excuse not to find us.
Get to know who’s playing below.
The Deep End (TGE Beach) – Thursday 15 May
Florence Road – 16.15
Despite only having released a handful of official singles to date, grunge revivalists Florence Road have already found a massive fan in Olivia Rodrigo. The Irish quartet’s first song ‘another seventeen’ incited a social media tidal wave that has since seen them amass hundreds of thousands of followers back in 2022, with a subsequent label scramble for their signature seeing the Wicklow natives land with Warner Records. Recent single ‘Heavy’ underlines the band’s melodic, pop-leaning credentials akin to The Cranberries that will undoubtedly see them join the likes of Rodrigo in the big leagues soon enough.
Laurie Wright – 17.15
The kind of scamp that’d be tussling with the Mods and Rockers on Brighton beach if he was born in that era, Laurie Wright’s brand of salt-of-the-earth indie rock gets you just as riled up. There’s an authentic grit to him too – busking since the age of 16, Wright has battled through addiction on his long and winding journey in music. He’ll have a few stories to tell, that’s for sure.
Nxdia – 18.15
Cairo-born, Manchester-raised and London-based, Nxdia’s bilingual alt-pop stylings – that blend English with her Arabic heritage – are as vibrantly rich and cinematic as her backstory. Citing Paramore, Chemical Romance and Simple Plan as her foremost influences, Nxdia’s raunchy yet lovelorn output is more electro-clash adjacent than pop punk-indebted, so get ready to rave through the heartbreak.
Sunday (1994) – 19.15
Transatlantic daydreamers Sunday (1994) feel firmly rooted in the year they’re named after, whose romantic dream-pop allure and penchant for vintage visuals has seen the trio emerge beyond TikTok notoriety to selling out shows on both sides of the pond. But the band, led by couple Paige Turner and Lee Newell. are no longer dreaming on behalf of other artists – the pair started out writing music for other bands and composing commercial music, but took a gamble in pursuing their own project. By being true to themselves, the gamble is paying off.
Brògeal – 20.15
Falkirk’s folk-rock upstarts Brògeal are all about the craic. Whenever the potent five-piece perform live, it’s carnage, shredding their banjos and accordions like they’re a DIY hardcore band tearing up a grimy venue. Lapping up their Celtic lineage and looking to irresponsible elders in The Pogues for influence, Brògeal are all about community and camaraderie – they’ll intoxicate The Deep End more than a barman pouring out free pints.
Chloe Slater – 21.15
“All the indie legends, basically,” Chloe Slater affirmed when asked about her primary influences in a recent interview with Ticketmaster Discover, name-dropping the likes of Declan McKenna and Sam Fender as sources of inspiration. Initially writing music and expressing herself via an alter ego she’d crafted, Slater has taken a page out of the aforementioned artist’s books by inserting more of her true self in her sultry indie pop output as she’s evolved. Her whip smart, heart-on-her-sleeve fury towards modern life’s many trappings clearly resonated with breakout singles ‘24 Hours’ and ‘Tiny Screens’ indicating that the fierce singer-songwriter has a voice to be reckoned with.
The K’s – 22.15
Indie rock doesn’t come quite as anthemic as The K’s, likely why the boys from Merseyside were neck-and-neck with The Libertines in a chart battle after the release of their debut album, I Wonder If The World Knows?, in 2024. Fast forward another year and they’re set to hit loftier heights with energetic, angsty follow-up, Pretty On The Internet. For The Deep End’s first headliners of the weekend, make sure to don your finest Fred Perry garbs.
Soundwaves (Main Beach) – Friday 16 May
Laundromat Chicks – 18.30
Laundromat Chicks’ blithe, lucid brand of jangle-pop has seen them conquer their local creative scene in their hometown of Vienna, Austria. With their third album, Sometimes Possessed, released earlier this year, the charming four-piece – led by founder Tobias Hammermüller – are road-tripping to British shores and beyond, dishing out nostalgic kicks for nostalgic hearts with a hefty helping of world-weary wisdom.
Keo – 19.30
An air of mystery has surrounded alt-rock evangelists Keo, due to their reluctance to release any music on DSPs until recent weeks, ensuring people seek them out at local venues where they do their utmost to grind your eardrums into dust. Led by the Keogh brothers who spent their childhood on the road with their musician father, Keo’s muscular riffs coupled with singer Finn’s pained, rasping vocals puts them next in line to join the batch of current bands making rock music big again such as Wunderhorse and Fontaines D.C..
Cliffords – 20.30
Cliffords are widely being touted as Ireland’s next great guitar band – there’s been plenty in recent years, and it’s an accolade the Cork-based five-piece don’t take lightly. Centred around singer Iona Lynch’s eloquent, evocative lyricism which pulls as the loose threads of her psyche trying to survive in her hometown, the alt-rock band have a deft touch when it comes to conducting atmosphere. Moments of moody introspection are often countered by crackling choruses, with Lynch’s rich storytelling underpinning everything. Breathtaking stuff.
Armlock – 21.30
A band fourteen years in the making, Armlock’s co-conspirators Simon Lam and Hamish Mitchell first crossed paths studying jazz music, before coming together creatively over various electronic music projects. All that exploration now fuels their dreamy, gentle – and deceptively existential – indie rock outfit Armlock. Sparse guitar riffs, trance-like vocals and crisp percussive rhythms belie the band’s penchant for meandering shoegaze, carving through the typical abrasive clouds of distortion you’d associate with such bands. Minimal they might be, but the Australians are more than capable of sending your head into a spin.
Witch Post – 22.30
Kindred spirits whose mode of expression shares the same DNA as 90s alt-rock bands like Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. and The Replacements, Witch Post are a supergroup as such. Two former solo artists in Alaska Reid and Dylan Fraser, after a chance encounter, realised they were two sides of the same coin. Bristling with the liberation of discovering a creative confidant, the pair navigate their mystical connection together in immersive songs like ‘Dreaming’ and ‘Rust’, both which feature on their debut EP, Beast. Reid’s ethereal, country-tinged cadence compliments Fraser’s worried vocal spookily well – closing out the Soundwaves showcase on Friday night, this will be too enchanting to miss.
