Brighton Gig Review: Mutations Festival 2025
Summary
Rating: ★★★★
Running Dates: Friday 7th - Saturday 8th November
Where to see it: Chalk, Dust, Patterns, Revenge, The Folklore Rooms, Alphabet, The Hope and Ruin, The Prince Albert, and Green Door Store
Duration: 3pm - 3am
Review
This weekend marked the seventh edition of the Mutations Festival in Brighton. The multi-venue music event allowed for a mix of returning and up-and-coming bands to perform to a diverse crowd. The festival spanned over Friday and Saturday, across nine independent grassroots venues with over 90 performances. And for real hardcore musicophiles the event runs for a whole 12 hours from 3pm to 3am.
The Mutations Festival was founded in 2015 by FORM and has created a community of support for lesser known bands.
After collecting your wristband from the rear of Chalk, you were free to roam the city streets, hopping in and out of the clubs and bars that hosted these artists. Many of the venues allowed for closer connection between artists and fans as there were no barriers separating the two.
Some venues, like Alphabet, proved harder to get into due to the smaller capacity. Bella Union’s Congratulations quickly became a first-come-first-serve performance. The queue remained around the corner as the security guards operated a one-in-one-out system.
The Norwich-based country rock band, Brown Horse performed at Chalk. The group seemed like a stereotypical group of indie friends, – it was their choice of instruments that was out of the norm. Most songs included an accordion and a pedal steel which only accelerated the hippy vibe that they radiated.
Keo then followed, earning their name from the vocalist and the bass player, the Keogh brothers. The band's all black attire gave a more cohesive look but it wasn’t to be mistaken for boring. The band had a much more lively take on their set, with a great use of space and stage presence from singer Finn Keogh. He brought the night to life, the crowd got louder as he shouted down the microphone. Whilst they only have one official album released so far, I would definitely recommend giving them a listen.
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs were next to take over the stage, and that they did. The lead vocalist of the British stoner metal band Matt Baty, took stage presence to an astronomical level. His macho-man, wrestle-mania persona sent the crowd into orbit. The crowd, who had by this point moved from a younger audience to a sea of middle aged men and women.
The Pigs x7 music was loud, energetic, and at times lacked lyrics. Instead Matt would jump around the stage as the crowd began creating mosh pits and circling people round while crowd-surfing. The flashing was intense, the depth of the sound seeped far into my body, and the crowd shoved with little courtesy for those around them.
I ended the night at the Hope and Ruin to see the electronic rock band, Courting, from Liverpool. This was a returning band and their catchy music hailed an array of mosh pits. The venue being much smaller made it all the more problematic as a group of boys branded in ‘I Love Courting’ tops shoved other fans. Some fans were disappointed by the range of older songs they played rather than their newer hits but overall it was an energetic performance.
The tickets were sold at £50, which for access to 90 gigs across 9 independent grassroots venues is a very fair price. Whilst some of the venues felt too small for the crowds, it's also a sure sign that Mutations is a festival very much needed in the city. I only wish I could have cloned myself to experience the whole thing.
Reviewed by Isabel Meszaros