LEVELLERS + SLEEPER + KID KAPICHI + BRAKES + THE MEFFS – HOVE PARK, BRIGHTON & HOVE 5.9.26
Considering I was a proper little indie kid growing up, I’m shocked it’s taken me all these years to actually see The Levellers at long long last. The closest I came was in my teens, an era when I used to avidly listen and singalong to ‘Levelling The Land’ on my Sanyo Walkman, then one day my dad came home from work, telling me that a band had come in and needed tyres on their vehicles for their current tour, then they offered him some free tickets for Brighton afterwards, he said “I’d never heard of them so said no thanks”, “who were they I pushed”, “oh they were called The Levellers”, 16 year old me cried that night. So here we are and it’s 2026, 35 years since ‘Levelling The Land’ and time for me to right that wrong. However I must tell the truth, I am getting to see them on their home turf here at Hove Park for the first time, but I also caught them twice at their very own Beautiful Days festival just 2 weeks ago in Devon.
And what a stacked line up we have here today, everything seems just perfect, the sun is out, no clouds, no wind, Hove Park is looking lovely, a very orderly queue of happy revellers are patiently awaiting doors open. And then 2pm on the dot the cheery security let us in. A real bonus was on offer for the first 200 to arrive, a free beautiful print designed by Jerremy ‘Jez’ Cunningham to celebrate the day, fully signed by all members of the band, and what a beaut it was too.
This day festival present to us by JOY.Concerts is open air, we have a big stage at the far end of the park, with a horse shoe shaped perimeter enclosing the rest of the arena, there is a great selection of food stalls, varied drinks including a craft beer bar and self service machines, a funfair with a big wheel, a raised accessibility area, a well stocked merch tent, they also had some sheltered seating towards the back which was great to see considering it was very sunny, and of course last but not least plenty of portaloos!
The festival also was raising money towards supporting Sussex Homeless, a cause very close to the hearts of The Levellers.
Right well that’s enough of the prologue, we have a 5000 capacity sold out crowd, so let me give you the low down on the music.
THE LEVELLERS – 20:20 – 21:50
The time of the evening had come for the band everyone was waiting for, the sheer number of T-shirts, jackets, clothing associated with the band adorned a huge number in the audience. Fans that have been there the whole journey I am sure. Of course the big reason for today is to celebrate the 35th anniversary of their gold certified 1991 album ‘Levelling The Land’, the band had said beforehand “It’s a Brighton album, a lot of the songs are about Brighton and its environs, so we are made up to be playing in our hometown”. We had also been promised that we were likely to hear a lot from the album today and on their upcoming UK tour, but what followed surprised me.
But first, who are The Levellers? They are a high energy band that blend folk and punk, their instruments are more traditional folk, the sound very much built around playing live, it’s exciting and fast. Their songs often focus on social, protest and political themes, if I had to say it in one word, I use the word “real”, they keep things real, down to earth, quite frankly pushing for a world I would rather see. The personnel have pretty much remained the core since their very early days, formed of; Mark Chadwick (lead vocals, guitar, banjo), Jeremy “Jez” Cunningham (bass guitar, backing vocals), Charlie Heather (drums, percussion), Jonathan “Jon” Sevink (fiddle, violin), Matt Savage (keyboards, backing vocals), Dan Donnelly who joined in 2022 (guitar, mandolin, vocals). Stephen Boakes (didgeridoo) also makes sporadic live appearances on selected songs.
So at 20:20, the lights went dark, nothing but a faint glow, then an introduction tape played “I want all of you to go to a window, stick your head out” and boom the band were on stage, lights on and they went straight in the utterly huge banger ‘One Way’, and boy did the crowd explode.
So what was it that surprised me? Well, the band literally played the whole album in its entirety off the bat!, just not quite in album order. The rest of the album followed in this order; the classic singalong ‘The Game’, ‘15 Years’ which had a sea of arms in the air waving. The softer and fiddle heavy ‘The Boatman’ which felt like a slight calm after the energy rush of those first three. Next the stage darkened with UV vibe and the neon glowing Stephen Boaks took to the stage with his didgeridoo for the ‘Jig’ causing massive cheers and jubilation. Mark told us Jeremy wanted a word with us, he cried out “Liiiiibbeeeeerrrtttttttyyyyyy”, it was ,‘Liberty Song’ everyone was jumping and bouncing, considering it’s usually only the very front that might be more active, I was pretty far back and everyone was at it, it was a proper mad one.
Next came ‘Far From Home’ a fine song indeed, the dancing and singalongs continued. I noted in my notepad during ,‘Sell Out’, “at this moment in time I am feeling just so happy” because I really was, this set was just feeling so special. The classics from the album continued with ‘Another Man’s Cause’, ‘The Road’ and ‘The Riverflow’, the crowd still fully going for it, the vibe was off the chart. And by 49 minutes we had reached the end of ‘Battle Of The Beanfield’. There had not really been much talking from the band during the set, but Mark closed that section with “Thank you very much boys and girls, that was, as they say ‘Levelling The Land’” and the stage went dark.
Prior to the gig I had been playing this album over and over on my CD player along with some of their earlier hits. I’m beyond glad I did as it really helped bring it all back and to singalong with the words, as did everyone else, I was standing fairly far back for the first half of the set, deep in the crowd and everyone around me as far as I could see was singing, dancing, jumping about.
But that was not the end of things, not by a long shot, this set was going to reach almost one hour and forty minutes by the time they were done. “Boo, those were the good old days” said Mark as he re-appeared under a focused spotlight with his guitar and started playing ‘Julie’ from the 1993 album ‘Levellers’, as the song progressed the rest of the band appeared and were gradually lit up. The quieter interlude was over and the crowd were back to singing along to every word. The rest of the set very much stuck to the early to mid 90s, something that seemed to really go down well with the crowd. From a selfish point of view, I was personally rather pleased as that was the era I had been a fan before I let them slip away. We were treated to ‘World Freak Show’, and the brilliant ‘Carry Me’ from the 1990 album ‘A Weapon Called The Word’.
Next came a McDermott’s 2 Hours cover; ‘Dirty Davey’, Jon’s fiddle was on fire during this one, such a crazy footstomper. After a moment’s pause that god damn amazing intro of ‘Hope St.’ burst into life, this one was from the 1995 album ‘Zeitgeist’, I decided to head down to the front of the stage for the rest of the set and get more stuck into the action. The mega songs just kept landing, we had another from 1990 ‘England My Home’, the lights on stage flashing white in a frenzy, the band bouncing in unison as they played. “Thank you very much Brighton & Hove, lovely to see you all” shouted Mark as the lights on stage dropped and the band left.
We kept cheering for a couple of minutes and Stephen was back on the stage with his didgeridoo, we all awaited with baited breath what was coming next. Momentum and clapping built and the band returned and kicked into ‘This Garden’ it literally sent shivers down my spine hearing this. In previous years Simon Friend who is currently on hiatus would sing/say the verses, however today the band were joined by The Meffs and Lilly had been asked to specially re-write it and perform this part. “From the sublime to the ridiculous” laughed Mark as we moved into the very upbeat ‘Just The One’ from the 1995 album ‘Zeitgeist’.
The super lively The Charlie Daniels Band cover ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’ kept the tempo high and dancing constant as the end now seemed to be in sight. “Thank you very much, it’s been brilliant here………..but I know the locals don’t like it” Mark joked as he thanked the bands who had played. He then said I am sure we can all concur that this next song is true on this occasion. It was of course ‘Beautiful Day’ from the 1997 album ‘Mouth To Mouth’, crazily the most recent song of theirs played in today’s set. Always the set closer and one that gets utterly everyone singing and dancing.
My word, what a set, you had Dan, Jon and Jez always tearing up and down, moving about the stage, jumping up and down. The energy of this band is off the chart and it’s so evident they are utterly loving every second of being up there and performing these songs still as if they had only been released yesterday. The other huge thing about The Levellers is they are so so tight musically, all these years of playing together show, I had thought they were good acoustically as the Levellers Collective and electrically under The Levellers at Beautiful Days, but today was just sublime. The crowd were happy, I was happy, Mark was not wrong, today really was a beautiful day.
The Levellers setlist:
‘One Way’
‘The Game’
‘15 Years’
‘The Boatman’
‘Jig’
‘Liberty Song’
‘Far From Home’
‘Sell Out’
‘Another Man’s Cause’
‘The Road’
‘The Riverflow’
‘Battle Of The Beanfield’
‘Julie’
‘World Freak Show’
‘Carry Me’
‘Dirty Davey’ (McDermott’s 2 Hours cover)
‘Hope St.’
‘England My Home’
‘This Garden’ (with The Meffs)
‘Just The One’
‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’ (The Charlie Daniels Band cover)
‘Beautiful Day’
SLEEPER – 18:40 – 19:40
Sleeper were in the final support slot of the day, the band achieved huge success in the mid 90s golden brit pop era with their stellar output; which also included recording a song for the ‘Trainspotting’ movie soundtrack (probably one of the greatest soundtracks ever in my ears), sadly after three albums they split in 1999. However since their reunion in 2017, the band have gone from strength to strength, selling out tours, playing plenty of festivals and releasing two more albums. I never actually caught them back in the day, but I was lucky enough to catch them at Shiiine Festival, Minhead a few years ago where they raised the roof and today was no different, aside there being no actual roof.
The bands line up consists of Louise Wener (lead vocals and rhythm guitar), Jon Stewart (lead guitar), Andy Maclure (drums) and Kieron Pepper (bass guitar), they were also joined on stage by a keyboard player (name unknown), all were wearing black, although Louise did have two pink flowers embroidered on her top.
They played a solid fifty seven minute, twelve song set, mostly taking in their earlier albums, the set was ‘Nice Guy Eddie’, ‘Cellophane’, ‘Delicious’, ‘Pyrotechnician’, ‘The Sun Also Rises’, ‘What Do I Do Now?’, ‘Factor 41’,‘Statuesque’, ‘Atomic’ (Blondie Cover), ‘She’s A Good Girl’, ‘Inbetweener’, they closed with their 1996 top ten hit ‘Sale Of The Century’.
I was particularly excited by the playing of ‘Atomic’ being the one off the aforementioned ‘Trainspotting’ soundtrack. What can I say, they played a fantastic set, rolling back the years, still as fresh as ever, the songs felt perhaps slightly slower than the 90s, but the crowd down at the front were loving it, jumping and singing. The only thing I would have asked for was the sun to have waited an hour before it set, sadly it dipped just before they came on.
KID KAPICHI – 17:30 – 18:10
Hastings band Kid Kapichi were new on me when the year started, despite them having been around since 2013. However I did have my introduction to them recently, when they supported Madness at the ‘On The Beach’ event in July, after which I treated myself to their 2026 album ‘Fearless Nature’ and have since built up a lotta lotta love for them.
Today this fine alternate punk band were really in their element and at the top of their game. Duo Jack Wilson (vocals/guitar) and Eddie Lewis (bass guitar) are made up into a foursome with a guitarist and drummer who’s name I’m afraid I don’t know. They came on stage to beating sun, all dressed in black, kicking off an excellent forty minute, ten song set with ‘Artillery’ and what an opener it was, strong, plenty of raging guitar and angst, the snarly ‘Lets Get To Work’ followed.
“I’m going to get f*cking sun buuuuuuurnt” bellowed out Jack as they got into ‘Stainless Steel’, a darker song, but such great guitar rhythms with more spoken/rap style delivery, there was no voice effect on this one unlike the previous two songs. Jacked shouted out “Big up the Levellers. A friend of mine asked me how do I know them, I said I don’t really know, they like us, I don’t know why, but they have kinda had our backs, so big up to them”. The nice and loud ‘Working Man’s Town’ came next followed by ‘Leader Of The World’, this one was slower, menacing again using the voice effect.
Jack introduced “The next song is about ‘Rob The Supermarket’, something I recommend you do”, a real fast and angry song, loved it. Jack lit up a ciggie as he informed us the next song was written and performed with Bob Vylan, a man came on stage called James, who then sang Bob’s part, the song was ‘New England’. This one was great, bordering on rap in places, we were told to give it up for James, “My oldest friend…..he’s 81” which got a laugh from the crowd. The tempo was brought down for ‘Rabbit Hole’, such a great song, I’ve had this on on repeat and up loud at home, a beach ball had appeared in the crowd and was bouncing around, someone somewhere was also blowing bubbles as the crowd were all singing along with the chorus, it felt rather like a special moment, especially as the sun was starting to drop. The final two songs were nice loud, heavier guitar songs ‘Get Down’ and ‘Smash The Gaff’ the moshpit was bouncing away for these. “Mines a tequila” requested Jack and it was sadly all over, as they left the stage the sun finally dropped behind the trees. What a set, I thoroughly enjoyed it and sense that this won’t be the last time I see them this year.
BRAKES – 16:20 – 17:00
Brakes are a band, that I must admit I’d never actually heard of before this week, they formed in 2003, but had split come 2009, there was a short reunion in 2015, and now they are back once more in 2026 having only played their first gig in eleven years just a week or so back, so today is actually a real treat to have them on the line up. In my pre-gig listening revision I managed to find a few of their songs online and liked what I heard so decided to stop and let the whole experience be a surprise for me on the day.
The band are four piece originally from Brighton, “we were born in Kemp Town 25 years ago” joked vocalist and guitarist Eamon Hamilton. The rest of the band are Thomas White (lead guitar), Marc Beatty (bass guitar) and Alex White (drums), all were wearing black clothes aside Alex who was sporting a dark blue t-shirt. We were treated to an ultra fast paced eighteen song, forty minute set with the band taking to the stage commenting it’s “too bloody bright” as Eamon fixed his sunglasses to avoid the glare of the sun.
What a set it was, quite the mix of styles too, most leaning towards Indie and post punk, but others more light, with a country and western flavour. The massive set played included; ‘Ring A Ding Ding’, ‘Hi How Are You?’, ‘Heard About Your Band’, this one was about watching bands at The Freebutt pub, Brighton back in the day. The set continued with ‘What’s In It For Me?’, ‘Hold Me In The River’, ‘Spring Chicken’, ‘You’re So Pretty’, and ‘Pick Up The Phone’ which was introduced as a “historical song”. It was fast and frantic, lasting less than a minute. We pushed on with ‘I Can’t Stand To Stand Beside You’ and another “historical song” ‘Cheney’, again this was fast, frantic and over in a flash. Next came ‘Don’t Take Me To Space (Man)’. I really liked this one, it was longer, powerful and frantic. Next was ‘On Your Side’ a slower, chilled country flavoured song, then ‘The Most Fun’, which was a song about growing up in Stroud, it was one that slowly built up like an intro and just as it reached the explosion point, it abruptly ended.
Mrs Mark Beatty aka Susie was introduced and came to the stage who sang dual vocals with Eamon for ‘Jackson’, another very country and western style number. The next song was introduced with “this next song is in A” it was ‘All Night Disco Party’, now I am sure I had heard before, a great sold fun indie banger. Next came the mad seven second ‘Comma Comma Comma Comma Full Stop’, T-shirts of this were available at the merch stand. We were back to the country style for ‘NY Pie’, with Eamon telling us all “we are Brakes, like on a bicycle, you can look us up on the internet and we are fantastic”. The set closed with ‘Porcupine Or Pineapple’ another fast and punky number. Well, that set was bloody brilliant, they are a great fun, lively band, humour injected, songs that are punchy and fast, now you can see how they squeeze in so many. Hopefully their reunion is not short lived.
THE MEFFS – 15:10 – 15:50
My pre-gig homework listening had me all fired up and excited about The Meffs, their Bandcamp bio reads “Frantic Britpunk Louder than a four-piece”, touching on the fact they really are a two piece from Essex formed of Lilly Meff (vocals/guitar) and Lewis Meff (drums/backing vocals). As I say I’d done my homework and I loved what I heard. This is a punk band, full of energy and brilliant lyrics. I even headed to the merch tent to buy both of their CDs before they hit the stage. Should I have waited?….hell no! At 15:10 Lilly in a white shirt and black trousers sporting a spiky blond hairstyle and Lewis dressed in black took to the stage, a big cheer went up, a solid crowd had come down early for this, “anyone from Essex?” Lilly asked, with a few responding, “that’s about the right ratio to cheer at that statement” she joked.
The first song out of the gates was the wicked and loud ‘Disorder (Wake Up)’, now that really did bring the crowd forwards to the stage. “Good afternoon Brighton, lovely to have you down early” Lilly said, continuing “it’s so sunny, we debated beforehand do we wear sunglasses, we don’t and I’m going to leave them off if you don’t mind as it’s going to get lively”. I loved this about Lilly, such stage presence and plenty of engagement with the crowd either talking or just smiling, learning, gesturing, we were all told to sing “around and around we go” during ‘Broken Britain, Broken Brains’, wow what a song, thumping drums, raging guitar, this then took us straight into ‘God Complex’.
The next song was a 20 second long song called ‘Fight’ where Lilly invited anyone that might not usually head into the moshpit might want to come down now, they clear a space and people can run, jump, kiss, but be respectful. There was a countdown of 2 not 4, a cheeky false start occurred to get more people involved, a nice little moshpit kicked off, “that’s good and will warm you up for part 2”. The band then played ‘Look At You’, during this Lilly left stage and came running round the side out into the crowd with her guitar, forming a circle pit around her at the front and carried on playing. Back on stage we were treated to ‘So Modern’ also billed us our warm up number 3, where plenty of clapping was encouraged.
‘Business’ came next. Lilly explained this song was aimed at the music industry as everyone would constantly question or be put off by the fact there are only two of them in the band, they would say don’t tour, no big stage, don’t expect big crowds…..but look just at today! Next came a wicked cover of Prodigy’s ‘Breathe’, wow, what a version this was, mad drums and crazy guitar. The final warm up as it was billed was ‘Like Gravity’, now this started out like it was going to be the quietest song, wrong it went supernova. The final song of the set was ‘Clowns’, the band will always be anti fascist, always anit-war, prompting a “F*ck Farage”, the song was paused at one point and everyone was told to get down and kneel before jumping up and going mad one last time, we all did.
These openers set the bar very very high for the day, I totally loved the set, the energy and power they generate, superb. Their new album ‘Business’ comes out next week and they have a series of instores over September to promote it, sadly not one in Brighton, but don’t let that put you off buying what is in no doubt going to be an awesome album.
The fun continues tomorrow in Hove Park with Passenger and friends. Read our account of the full day’s events HERE.
