The Great Escape 2025, First Fifty review

With Luvcat, TTSSFU and Keo on the bill, here's what went down at the Ticketmaster New Music showcase for The Great Escape's First Fifty

This week, east London’s music venues were bustling with fans attempting to get a glimpse of the industry’s ‘next big thing’ at The Great Escape Festival’s First Fifty. Ticketmaster held our very own showcase of hotly tipped artists at Hackney’s glittering MOTH Club, with Luvcat, TTSSFU and Keo all on the bill. Here’s what went down on the night:

Keo

First up was Keo, who set about to pulverise eardrums with their angsty post-grunge. Driven by the blonde poster-boy Keogh brothers – both of which had enviably defined jawbones – the four-piece band wore their visual and musical 90s influences proudly on their sleeves: and quite literally on their persons too, donning a Soundgarden Badmotorfinger t-shirt and Samuel L. Jackson’s trademark Kangol hat. Complete with meaty riffs on tracks such as ‘Crow’ and ‘Stand Myself’, lead singer Finn’s sentimentality shone through the bulldozing instrumentation, evoking bands such as Bush and even Silverchair. Their ethos is decidedly retro too, having yet to release any music on Spotify or any other DPSs.

Keo presented a maturity and assurance on stage, likely because they’ve been performing live technically since the age of seven. Ahead of their show, Finn told Ticketmaster about his first ever gig: “I used to get up on my dad’s lap when I was like, seven, and sing ‘Dirty Old Town’. He’s an old Irish folk musician.” With the crowd instantly chanting “KEOOOO” in between each song, it’s the kind of adoration they’re already prepared to contend with it seems.

TTSSFU

“There’s beer all over me,” Tasmin Nicole Stephens, aka TTSSFU, drolly joked as she jumped back on stage having launched herself into the maelstrom of the MOTH Club crowd with a can of beer in hand mid-song. The prolific DIY shoegazer has steadily broken away from her bedroom pop beginnings, embracing a sense of swagger as she’s illuminated her hazy, alluring sound in the live space at recent gigs, including a support slot for English Teacher the night before. Moonily strumming away at her passion red Daisy Rock guitar – a kind of visual match cut of her Manchester forebear in Ian Curtis’ white Vox Phantom VI – as Tasmin gazed into the distance, the rhythmic energy of her band leaned into a ferocious alt-rock. The thrashy live version of standout track ‘I Hope You Die’ certainly overshadows its studio recording thanks to her guttural screams – no wonder Partisan Records have recently snapped her up.

Luvcat

Luvcat’s lovelorn laments and narrative tales of obsession and domestic agitation might suggest that finding love is the last thing on her mind. But based on the sheer quantity of people cramming into the MOTH Club to witness the Liverpudlian singer before she inevitably blows up, love for the star-in-the-making was all around. Front-row fans were singing along to the lyrics of songs that haven’t even been released yet, a rarity for burgeoning musicians nowadays, but one that signposts Luvcat’s trajectory surely.

Going by the murmurings from people flooding in, Luvcat was the most highly anticipated act on the entire bill across the multi-venue showcase. Entering the stage – flanked by two guitarists you had to double take for being Robert Fripp’s offspring – she and her backing band were dressed as though they’d just stepped off the set of an episode of Top Of The Pops from 1965. Her lush blue-eyed soul-meets-country rock and self-professed “murder balladry” was evidently inspired by the era. Her visual aesthetic (beehive adorning and smokey-eyed in high heels) and carefully sculpted sound oozes in theatricality, in drama, and in romantic enchantment. Understandably, the entire audience transfixed on the coquettish singer throughout singles ‘He’s My Man’ and ‘Matador’. Several words of sage advice: believe the buzz.

The Great Escape next takes place in Brighton on 14–17 May 2025. Find tickets here