The Maccabees Headline Brighton’s On The Beach, Debut Unreleased Track

The Maccabees closed the seventh day of Brighton’s On The Beach festival with a set that pulled from a two-decade relationship with the city. It was the band’s first hometown headline since reforming last year after a seven-year hiatus, and the slot placed them at the centre of a lineup that earlier in the day included Ash, Anna Calvi, and Editors.

They opened with “Love You Better” and moved through “Feel To Follow,” “Spit It Out,” and “Marks to Prove It” with an energy that didn’t lean on nostalgia. The set’s sharpest turn came with “Ballad Of So Long,” an unreleased song first played in Edinburgh this month. Its lyric—“I loved you so much, once upon a time”—unfolds over a melancholic guitar line, offering something closer to a reflection than a victory lap.

Frontman Orlando Weeks paused to speak about the band’s early years in Brighton, when nothing was certain and the city’s scene gave them room to develop. He framed the moment not as a triumphant return but as an acknowledgment of that support. The crowd, singing back “Precious Time” and later the encore of “No Kind Words” and “Pelican,” seemed to share the understanding.

For a group that stopped in 2017 and came back without a new album, the festival set suggested a live act still finding its footing in the present, with at least one new song to show for it. The Maccabees’ connection to Brighton has always been a material part of their story. On this night, it was the part they chose to put forward.