The Big Moon, Sorry and more close The Great Escape 2017 in celebratory style

With the sun blaring down on the pier outside, South London boy Yellow Days' brand of crooning soul sounds all the sweeter. While there may be a slew of similarly-minded and similarly-buzzy emotive types on the bill this year (see: Cosmo Pyke, Puma Blue etc), 18-year-old George Van Der Broek feels like the one who could take the crown. With the cracked, raw vocal of a man who's been smoking 60-a-day for the past few decades, he's like King Krule raised on a Motown diet.

Bad Sounds, meanwhile, bring an altogether more Technicolor party to the stage. Bounding around the stage, singer Callum Merrett is an infectious frontman, leading the quintet through a set that channels Beck's musical magpie tendencies and shines them up with a Radio One-friendly pop filter. There's bits of hip-hop, bits of Britpop, bits of pure pop in there, and in the likes of 'Avalanche' and recent single 'Meat On My Bones', the combination sparkles.

Everyone keeps repeating the name of the next band on. Mainly because they're really ace, and partly because people keep stepping on each other's toes in the bar scrum, too. With a new band name (this lot used to be called Fish) and absolutely heaps of confidence, Sorry vocalist Asha Lorenz has fully embraced intensity, goading the crowd into mayhem and leading with a menacing, unsettling presence. Last year, this North London lot showed early promise; and hard graft playing tons of gigs has clearly paid off. 'Drag King' – their debut single – is a gender-bending slice of robotic grunge, but the jittering, incessant 'More' is probably the moment that really steals the show.

Is Soph Nathan from The Big Moon capable of teleportation, or has she successfully managed to clone herself? Just a few hours ago we spotted her across town on land; first playing a floor show at The Hope and Ruin with Our Girl, then at a sticky basement show at the aptly-named Sticky Mike's, and THEN, in the mosh pit for Abattoir Blues. Somehow, against all odds and laws of physics, she's managed to beam herself back to the end of the pier again – the hero – right in time for The Big Moon's set. Closing out a weekend of festivities at Horatio's is a job best left to experts; and this lot are the ones to do it. After easing everybody in with a sing-a-long, Celia Archer orders the room to dance, and incendiary anthem 'Bonfire' provides the hot coals to spark a whirling pit.

Playing tonight's gig above The Actual Sea, and bringing down Horatio's in the process, old favourites 'The Road' and 'Sucker' collide headlong with cuts from their debut album. Few bands throw themselves into a show quite like The Big Moon, who spend majority of the time grinning. It all feels like one very rowdy celebration.

It's impossible to watch new Rough Trade signings Honey Hahs - who take to the stage at Jubilee Gardens to a packed crowd - without a caveat in your mind. The three sisters are ridiculously young - 9, 11 and 15 to be precise - and so, you wonder, are they very good or are they just very good for their age? We're still not sure tbh, but there's something in the simple, sing-song melodies and genuinely goosebumps-inducing harmonies of 'Forever' and 'Beer Fear' (somewhere between The Moldy Peaches and CocoRosie) that suggests the trio could develop into something truly special. No caveat needed.

Pumarosa released their debut album ‘The Witch’ yesterday, and it’s a party mood they bring to a Coalition bursting at the seams, and with a queue stretching down the beach. Album standouts ‘Lions’ Den’ and ‘Dragonfly’ are anthemic in the most twisted, creepy way, and, as always, ‘Priestess’ is the towering, gargantuan disco that the set builds towards. As closing sets go, Pumarosa produce one of the very best, and the band roll on towards what’s set to be a huge 2017, ‘The Witch’ now in hand.

Photos: Emma Swann

Tags: Sorry, The Big Moon, The Great Escape, Festivals, Reviews, Live Reviews