Rising Perth artist, Riley Pearce, shares his tour diary from The Great Escape festival (UK)
It’s an exciting time for Riley Pearce right now, who’s quickly garnering more and more attention with his honest brand of compelling alt-folk.
Having already toured with the likes of LifeHouse, Lord Huron, Tash Sultana, Kim Churchill and Josh Pyke, the Perth muso has taken us along on his latest jaunt overseas.
Scroll down to see Riley Pearce’s tour diary from The Great Escape festival in the UK.
Arrived in Europe mid-April with my partner Alex, we bought a van a short drive west of Brighton and spent the first week of our trip fixing it up.
The van drives really well but unfortunately Google Maps, or our own sense of direction, lets us down. On the way to Glasgow for a show, I directed Alex down what I thought was the correct road… turned out to be a very pothole-filled road that ended with us getting bogged in the mud.
On 9 May I had my first ever London headline show at a venue called A Thousand Islands (pretty sure that’s a sauce option at Subway). The venue featured about 30+ disco balls on the roof and for the last song I got everyone to sit down and shine their camera torches to the roof. This was the result.
Straight after the London show, Alex and I flew to Holland for three sold-out theatre shows with Belgian artist Selah Sue. The venues were jaw-dropping, the patrons so welcoming and I loved everything about the towns too. It was one of my favourite weekends of live shows I’ve had.
The next week saw us head to Brighton for The Great Escape; a lovely beachside town and a great chance to see up and coming artists from around the world. Some of my faves were Dermot Kennedy and Phoebe Bridgers. Australia had a bunch of artists there and a bunch of different showcases. It was a great chance to hang with fellow Aussie folk artists Didirri and Alexander Biggs.
Follow Riley Pearce on Facebook and Instagram, and check out new track, Elephants, below.