There are very few shows that fill us with such excitement, with one band currently riding high on critical acclaim following the release of their eighth studio album. Another band who are also benefiting from a similar raft of praise, Heartless Bastards take to the stage with their distinctive brand of Americana-tinged rock.

Kicking the show off in an exciting style, they burst out of the blocks and have the room jumping in a matter of seconds as that distinctive tone of Erika’s resonates throughout this beautiful hall. With tracks from the latest long player Restless Ones being the stars of the show this evening, with the wonderful 'Gates Of Dawn' being the stand out of this early set.

As they exude passion and enthusiasm, they win over the crowd that are quickly amassing, with their singalong choruses and enigmatic stage presence. To support one of the most passionate bands on the planet, you need a huge presence yourselves and tonight Heartless Bastards showed that they were well equipped to blow away tonight’s crowd.

With the crowd now suitably hyped up, the stage is reset for Jim James and the rest of My Morning Jacket, to take things to a whole new level. Kicking proceedings off with 'Victory Dance', Jim struts around the stage with his sampler hung around his neck, akin to a messiah, his baying subjects falling at his feet and there’s an immediate sense of adoration.

From the laidback tones of 'Masterplan' to the atmospheric beauty of 'Tropics (Erase Traces)', My Morning Jacket are in the form of their lives. Jim James’ lyrics will always remain the star of the show though, his heartfelt laments coupled with crushing guitars and pounding drums. It’s truly a sight and sound to savour as he riles the crowd up as they reach frenzy.

 Such frenzy is no more evident than during 'Believe (Nobody Knows)', this huge singalong hands in the air moment sees the crowd and the band at their most animated. Yet My Morning Jacket makes this entire set look so effortless, each track delivered with equal measures of heart and breathtaking excitement. With a plethora of new tracks standing up against the classics, Waterfall comes alive tonight.

As the band return to a rapturous reception they set about turning the level up even further, with a mammoth five song encore featuring phenomenal renditions of 'Holdin’ On To Black Metal', 'Off The Record' and topping it all off 'One Big Holiday'. All this capping off a raucous evening from two of the finest live bands around.

The first thing to greet us is the strange yellow thing in the sky which is now blazing down. Today’s line-up also offers us much more excitement with some wonderful acts and we aim to see as many as we can.

Up first on the main stage are Disraeli And The Small Gods a wonderful six piece hip hop band that attack with a whole host of instruments along with Bellatrix blowing us away with some amazing beatbox skills. Disraeli lays down some hard-core lyrics, which we feel could have been rewarded with a slot higher up the running order. However it’s a great warm up act and an excellent start.  

We decide to avoid the parents’ pit which is hosting a live version of Dr Seuss's Cat in the Hat and plump instead for some soothing acoustic sounds on the folklore stage to catch the wonderful Frankie Furlong and Josh Mac then on to Astrid's Tea Party on the BIMM stage. These three acts go a long way to helping small festivals grow. All these acts are just starting their careers and for a new festival it’s vital that they are seen to give an opportunity to acts such as this. Moreover we the music-loving public get exposure to acts we would never have found out about. We continue to pop back and forth in-between the main stages and are lucky enough to catch the wonderful Oktoba which is a project of another Brighton-based artist Chris Athorne who we think has a wonderful future ahead of him.

After all this new music we decided we need to return to one of our highlights of other festivals. Roots Manuva are onstage and they do not disappoint. Rodney P and band pump out some classic laid back hip hop to the now much larger crowd. Obviously the hit ‘Witness’ goes down a storm along with the deep bass funk of ‘Jah Warriors’. Although a short set we were delighted to bump into him backstage and have a quick chat about his upcoming album and the importance of UK Hip Hop. 

Next act on the main stage, Lucy Rose, unfortunately couldn't quite follow Roots Manuva with her acoustic sounds. She is also battling the noise made by the other stage where Fly Golden Eagle are rocking our socks off. We stay around to catch local lad Jacko Hooper who delivers an excellent set full of integrity and brings a welcome honesty to his craft which we hope will propel him to a wider audience.

With the sun still beating down and having rushed around four stages trying to cram as much in as possible we can relax safe in the hands of the wonderful Public Service Broadcasting. With a beer in hand and a wonderful crowd they take the stage. This is the highlight of the whole weekend for us. They have a wonderful mixture of unique archive sounds which are a roaring success. Their interaction with the crowd via their vocal loops and humour made us chuckle as we danced. The environment seemed to match their sound perfectly. The introduction of an added dancing dad horn section was an enormous success. For their smash hit ‘Gagarin’ they even added a dancing cosmonaut. What more can a band do we asked ourselves. 

We leave the main stage and mutter that with two main acts to still to come we wondered if PSB should not have swapped slots with the closing act Jose Gonzalez. 

With our feet now well and truly worn out we rather shamefully plump ourselves done on the grass, grab an overpriced burrito and settle down to await the Motown legends Martha Reeves And The Vandellas. For a woman in her 70s it is quite amazing the energy and power that she can produce on stage. She knocks out hit after hit and it felt a real privilege to see a true legend perform. We basically danced our weary butts off assuming this was the last chance for a boogie. 

We are comforted to know we were correct in our assumptions. We still have time to pop in to see the amazing chilled sounds of Luke Sital-Singh. This singer songwriter has a very bright future and already has attracted many plaudits. His vulnerable voice and intense lyrics bring a calming effect to the end of the festival. The final act Jose Gonzalez continues this chilled calm effect. However we question whether a festival should end so calmly and so relaxed.  Jose is a wonderful attraction and as we sit on a now rather chilly evening we are treated to a relaxing soothing set. In between shivering and the gnashing of teeth we reflect on all the acts we have seen and conclude that it’s been a roaring success. There are a few things that need improving but we are confident that Together The People 16 will be an even bigger and better event.

There are lots more photos to be found via this link.

Photographer: Natalie Milham.

A new festival venture at the end of summer which aims to bring a sense of community to the good folk of Brighton and beyond managed to catch the last rays of the summer sun.

The festival is situated in the vast open spaces of Preston Park and the line-up promised a combination of seasoned festival favourites along with a host of new exciting acts. The crowd is a mixture of Hipster families and their children, festival veterans in their 30s and 40s and a splattering of students and teenagers.

Armed with our lanyards we descended into the throng. Our first few acts confirmed our hopes with MOK attempting to blow away the grey threatening skies with their upbeat Rudimental-type sound which got the early crowd going. Over on the main stage Chris Simmons rewarded our ears with some lovely acoustic numbers plus a few well chosen crowd-pleasing covers.  

With the sun now out in force the festival really starts with the arrival of Lucy Spraggen, the former X factor contestant turned anti-Cowell enthusiast, who treated us to her upbeat politicised songs which go down a storm with the Brighton crowd. Her wonderful honestly enhances her approach to song writing and such tracks as ‘Don't Know Nothing About The Blues’ and her hit ‘Last Night’ are great crowd pleasers.

Time now for the festival to demonstrate its community side with the arrival of the Horrible Histories a live version of the children’s TV hit. This creates a strange combination of very excited children with middle class parents panicking about their child’s races to see the acts whilst trying not to look like they are straining to hear the excellent Ghostpoet. Fortunately slightly poor planning on the festival's part means both main stages are facing each other. So for this instant it works perfectly. However throughout the rest of the festival this would illustrate a bit of a schoolboy error with a large area in the middle of the festival becoming a clash of sound in one big useless racket. This could have been avoided with better timing as there were times when both main stages were playing and big gaps when neither was.

However all this was soon forgotten with the arrival of the wonderful Mr. Billy Bragg. Billy’s left wing songwriting needed no introduction and found a welcome home nestled in the green lefty Brighton audience. His powerful ideology and connection with the audience regarding refugees display an artist who is as important now as he perhaps ever was.

The Xcerts countered at the end of his set and raised the noise levels. The exciting young three piece ensured the younger ears were well catered for with their full on rock sound. In search of something away from the main stages we popped into the other stages. There was a calm oasis in the Folklore stage. We also managed to catch the end of Atlas Wynd in the BIMM tent (Brighton Institute of Modern Music) to see the duo serving up a diet of pure and raw rock noise.

Back to the main stage and the crowd takes off with the arrival of The Levellers. It suddenly feels like a proper festival complete with huge audience participation and crowd surges as they blast out their honed folk rock sounds and the crowd laps it up. The final acts of the day offer up a dilemma, do we opt for the new exciting indie rock Brighton boys Brakes or plump for the psychedelic indie Welsh wonders of the 1990s the Super Furry Animals? Locality wins and we enjoy a wonderful set from Brakes and still manage to catch SFA with a few whispers in the crowd that we hadn’t missed much. It looks like we had chosen wisely as the Super Furry Animals were misfiring somewhat.  So that was the end of the first day; we trudged home and awaited an excellent line-up on the morrow.

The Brutes, a ‘high-octane’ (by their own correct description) '60s-influenced garage punk band from Glasgow are the first up on tonight’s very exciting bill at The Franklin Rock 'N' Roll Club. They set the tone with their first number ‘Caveman Stomp’. Tonight is gonna be fun, fast, furious and in your face! ‘Trouble’ and ‘Real Gone Gasser’ follow in a similar vein; they could have been lifting these songs straight from a Pebbles comp. However, citing The Troggs as one of their biggest influences, singer Jim Spence asks "any Trogglodytes in the audience?" The response is a bit like tumbleweed blowing through a desert landscape. Undeterred, they knock out a stompy ‘Strange Movies’ by the very same. Finishing up with Wailers snotty '60s mover ‘Hang Up’ and an accelerated cover of ‘Shot Down’ by garage gods, The Sonics.

This is the third time I’ve seen The No-Things play over the past 12 months, and every time I see them I’m impressed by their improvement. I like them a lot; they tick all of the '60s garage influenced boxes for me. Laurent Mombet, also of Les Bof, is a natural front man, and he’s not afraid to show it; wearing his influences firmly on his striped t-shirt sleeve, and with an attitude to match. They describe themselves as ‘low-fi and quite primitive’, which is all true, but there is so much more to them. Dare I say it, some of their songs are downright catchy, and it’s pretty impossible to resist the urge to dance. In fact, the crowd and I are not resisting as they open with ‘The Birds’, just in case you were expecting anything less than snarly. Call and response ’Who Did You Rob, Bob’ with its 1-2-5 harmonica (I misquoted this song title in a previous review, apologies) goes down a bomb, and who did Bob rob? I’m curious. ‘Losin’ My Mind’ is another low-down dirty snarly punk number ‘’I don’t need anyone’’ shouts Laurent gesticulating, this song, reminiscent in parts, to The Sparkles' ‘You Ain’t No Friend Of Mine’. This is an intense performance, and one of the best things about the Franklin is that the stage is at the same level as the crowd, and sometimes there isn’t much of a distinction between band and crowd (why aren’t all gigs like this?). ‘Diamond Ring’ is a rendition of displeasure, chewed up and spat! They finish with ‘Don’t Get On My Tits’ well, okay, we won’t. We have been warned.  

With much anticipation we turn to tonight's headliners, Les Grys Grys. With a couple of 7" releases under their belts on State and Dirty Water respectively, these 5 wild young musicians from France appear to be the darlings of the '60s scene just now. Heavily influenced by '60s r'n'b / beat and garage, with a downright durty harmonica sound, I was wondering how much of this was hype, but (thankfully) decided to bracket my judgements. People who had seen them play at McChuills in Glasgow the previous night had travelled through to Edinburgh to see them play again. Within the first 3 opening bars (as I scraped my brain from the back wall) I fully understood why. No pleasantries here, just straight into a full-on cover of 'Milk Cow Blues'. Clealry taking their influences from bands like The Outsiders, Pretty Things and Downliners Sect, to name but a few. Their version of 'At the River’s Edge’ (New Colony Six) is thumping and driving, and without pause we're onto Nederbeat with ‘You Mistreat Me’. Could this be The Outsiders? Is this what it was really like to see a band in ‘65? I convince myself for a moment that it must have been. They barely come up for air throughout the whole performance, and are not afraid to get sweaty. ‘Got Love’ (totally goosebumpy), ‘Tiger In Your Tank’, and ‘Roadrunner’ are all performed with authentic reproduction, energy and raw passion. I look around and I can't see anyone in the crowd that doesn't have a grin from ear to ear, it is completely intoxicating. They are also not afraid to get amongst the crowd, standing on seats and tables, and did I imagine this or was the guitarist playing his guitar with a drum stick? As the set draws to a close (sadly it has to end, they must surely be exhausted by now!), we are treated to some real rock and roll maraca smashing action! If you get the chance, go see them play.

Thanks to the organisers, this has been another fabulous night at the Franklin Rock 'N' Roll Club.