Shot! Brighton Pride Festival 2022

Back in the park again with a line up of divas, drag queens, newbies and has-beens, Brighton Pride celebrated its return with big crowds sweltering in the south coast sunshine

13 min readAug 20, 2022

Following the last two festivals having to be cancelled because of Covid, Pride returned to Brighton — the unofficial gay capital of the UK — for the first time since 2019. That in itself was cause for celebration, but this year also marked a major milestone: it was Brighton Pride’s 30th anniversary.

Widely acknowledged as being the biggest — and the best — Pride event in the country, it gets underway with a colourful parade through the streets of Brighton and Hove before culminating in a ticketed event in Preston Park, which mystifyingly, now goes under the banner We Are Fabuloso. Why they’ve given it a separate name, I’ve no idea. Indeed, I didn’t hear a single person call it anything other than Pride. Surely, Pride in the Park would have been a better choice?

With the forecast promising a scorching weekend, some 300,000 people were expected on the Saturday alone. The pent-up energy was palpable. Remember this is Brighton’s biggest annual event by far. Almost everyone lining the streets were sporting something with rainbow colours with many adorned with glitter. The drinks were flowing and there was a party atmosphere all along the parade route. However, it has to be said the parade itself is a real letdown, especially when you compare it with other similar events that take place around the world.

Where are the fabulous floats, the amazing costumes and the well-drilled marching bands? Instead, it’s lots of happy people on the backs of flat bed trucks jumping around to pre-recorded music. Call me a killjoy, but I’ve been to lots of carnivals and parades overseas, all of which are considerably more impressive.

That being said, what brings me to Pride is not the parade, but the music. And, if I’m honest, I have to say this year’s lineup didn’t hold a great deal of appeal. While the parade only takes place on the Saturday, the Preston Park event is held on the Sunday as well. Past headliners have included The Pet Shop Boys, Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue and the ultimate diva herself, Mariah Carey, was due to have headlined the last Pride which, thanks to Covid, ended up being cancelled not once, but twice.

This year it was the turn of Christina Aguilera. Now I know she’s a big name, and that she’s sold a whopping 43 million records, but she’s another of those ‘legendary’ artists whose reputation is way bigger than her relevance to today’s music scene. Saying that, whether it was down to her topping the bill or not, Saturday sold out while Sunday tickets were still available. Personally, even if they’d combined the best of both line-ups into a single day, I’m not sure it would’ve been that strong of a bill.

As with any large scale event, people come for all different reasons. Whilst many would have been there for Christina, I’ve no doubt others came regardless of who was playing. For me, Pride is all about the musicians and this year, I got to see all but one of their performances.

Being a summer event, most of them performed in daylight — only the headliners benefited from theatrical lighting. Stagewise, they were backed by the name ubiquitous floor to ceiling video screen and all could make use of the catwalk that brought them closer to the audience.

Now I have to admit never having heard of most of the support artists.

The first being Tia Kofi who apparently was a former contestant of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. Then came Call Me Loop, the stage name of Georgia Buchanan.

I missed L Devine as I was photographing the drag queens (of which more later) before getting to see another drag queen, Bimini, on the main stage.

Up next was RAYE, one artist I was actually looking forward to. I really enjoyed her performance and can see her carving out a decent career.

She was followed by Todrick Hall, another drag act I knew nothing about until seeing him promoting Brighton Pride on one of the morning shows.

Apparently, he’s a renowned choreographer, but although I didn’t think much of his moves or that of his dancers, he proved a perfect choice for a Pride audience. To be honest, with his energy he should have been second on the bill.

Tasked with getting the crowd ready for Christina was Ella Henderson. It was my first time seeing her and I have to say I found her pretty anonymous. She’s neither got the looks, the personality, nor the vocal chops that would make you sit up and take notice and I’m somewhat baffled about her popularity…or why she was second on the bill. It also says something, when half your set are covers.

As darkness began to fall, it was showtime for the one person everyone was waiting for: Christina.

It was twenty years ago, on her anthemic hit Beautiful, that she sang the words:

“You’re beautiful, no matter what they say.”

Immediately, she became a voice for the LGBTQ+ community.

Fresh off of her headlining set at LA Pride in mid-June when she caused controversy by wearing a strap-on, the Latina powerhouse had played London’s O2 Arena the day before coming to Brighton as the last show of her Summer Series four-date UK tour.

As the headliner, Christina had the benefit of it being dark when she took the stage at 9:15. In terms of presentation, that alone makes a huge difference. It was also no surprise that the 6-time Grammy Award winner also benefited from a much bigger production than anyone else, with more screen visuals, her own dancers, pyros and plenty of costume changes.

The first of these — a flame number — made her look like an extra from a Kiss tour. Trussed up and squeezed in, it also made her look her age — she’s now a 41-year-old mother of two.

Her next outfit was the most striking — a neon green corset that she wore with a visor, that quickly became the most memorable and iconic visual image of this year’s Pride.

My favourite song of hers was 1999’s Genie In A Bottle. During Vanity, a track from her Bionic album, her dancers carried circular mirrors for a celebration of self-love. And, as they had done at LA Pride, they also held up signs that read “Say gay” to express support for LGBTQ people in states where legislation restricting discussion of LGBTQ rights in schools has begun to be implemented.

And of course, to accommodate all those costume changes, there were numerous ‘interludes’ where Christina left the stage and she had two songs of her set sung by special guests.

I never got to see her full set. Along with many others, before she finished, I had to leave the park as once again public transport issues meant the last train out of Brighton was way too early. Why on earth Southern Rail can’t lay on extra late trains for Pride weekend always baffles me, considering the thousands of people who descend on the city for the event, the difficulty in parking nearby and the time it takes to walk from Preston Park to Brighton station.

My overriding memory of the first day was the blistering heat, the equally warm atmosphere of the crowd and the overall disappointment of Saturday’s line-up where only Raye and Christina impressed me. Whilst they were the highlight of the main stage, what I enjoyed the most was watching the drag queens singing in the Legends Tent. Look out for a separate feature on them coming soon.

One other observation was the increasing number of big corporate names who are now involved with Pride. The event was supported by Yahoo! and TUI and Jean Paul Gaultier both had a presence in the park, as did Coca Cola and Costa who were giving away ice cold cans of Coke Zero and iced coffee.

Day two had a definite after-the-Lord Mayor’s-show feeling. Without the parade, the streets were empty and when I first arrived so too was Preston Park. Again, the weak line-up wouldn’t have helped. It was also another baking hot day.

Opening proceedings was Irish singer Lyra, followed by Cat Burns, neither of whom had I even heard of.

Then came Abba tribute band, Bjorn Again, who I had seen before many years ago, although whether it was this version I have no idea. As far as I know, there are at least two Bjorn Again line-ups gigging at any one time and both have been around longer than the band they imitate. Now, I’ve seen the original ABBA live (at the Royal Albert Hall) as well as various ABBA tribute bands, so I think I’m a reasonable judge, but I have to say Bjorn Again were embarrassing.

It can’t be easy to spend your career imitating another band night after night, wearing the same costumes and playing the same songs. And when you barely resemble the people you’re supposed to be re-enacting, it just comes across as naff — especially when you put on a fake Swedish accent! Yes, of course people sang along, but they would’ve done so if it was just a DJ playing ABBA hits.

Next up was Sophie Ellis Bextor, who I’d seen two or three times before, most recently when she supported Steps at the Brighton Centre in 2021. Once again, I’m not a big fan of hers, but I have to say she surprised me at Pride.

From the get go she had the audience with her and arguably got the best reaction of any of the performers that proceeded her, including Saturday’s line-up. She was also one of the few acts at Pride that had a full band — who, for reasons unknown, took the stage wearing animal heads!

Now it was time for the two artists I was most looking forward to seeing. The first of these was Jake Shears, formerly the frontman of Scissor Sisters. I’ve been fortunate to see Scissor Sisters live — and their Brighton Centre show back in 2010, remains high up in my memory. More recently, I got to see Jake play a solo show at Concorde 2. This time, I was hoping for a reunion between him and Scissor Sisters co-vocalist Ana Matronic as she was playing a DJ set later that evening in the park. Sadly, that never happened.

Despite that, Jake put on a great show, sticking mainly to his Scissor Sisters hits. He had great energy, running up and down the catwalk and clearly enjoying performing in front of a live audience again.

Why he didn’t have a full band was puzzling as he was supported by two live musicians: a drummer and guitarist, leaving the rest of the music to emanate from backing tracks. And whilst there was no Ana Matronic, he did bring on a special guest, the saxophone playing drag queen Snow White Trash, who joined him for several songs including I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’.

To bring Brighton Pride — sorry We Are Fabuloso — to an end, saw the return of Paloma Faith. A few years ago, Paloma played a memorable DJ set at Pride dressed as Marilyn Monroe.

This time, she took the stage in another blonde wig and wearing a crimson PVC bodysuit, cape and matching boots, which can’t have been the most comfortable get up considering the heat. As always, with Paloma, she puts on a great performance, even though few would be able to name a single one of her songs.

I would have liked to have stayed to see her entire set, but with the night before’s transport issues still fresh in my mind, I chose to beat a hasty retreat to the station.

As I left the park, I couldn’t help but think that my first impressions of this year’s line-up was spot on: with the exception of the two headliners, it really wasn’t that strong. Neither would it have been even if the best acts of each day had all featured on the Saturday.

If Pride is to continue being a two day event in the park, much more needs to be done to make the second day a bigger attraction. And following, a run of ‘diva’ legacy acts headlining the show, surely it’s time to look for something different in the future.

In reality, the Preston Park event is much the same as any other music festival, with the standard fairground rides and food and drink concessions. What makes it different is the audience and some of the retail offerings. I’m not so sure you could buy butt-plugs at too many other festivals!

Behind the image: All these images were shot with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 and the 75 1.8 lens. I was only able to shoot the first three songs of each performance from the pit — essentially the area around the catwalk. As this and the stage were extremely high, it was quite challenging to get good shots of the performers. This was especially the case if you wanted to avoid anything messy or extraneous intruding the frame. For example, as most of the acts performed in daylight, the trusswork was almost always visible. With so many photographers shooting, I really wanted to ensure my shots stood out. I’d like to think that’s something I managed to achieve. Shot in Brighton on 6 and 7 August 2022.

About the author: Based in Sussex-by-the-Sea, on England’s south coast, Gary is a creative writer and image-maker. He specialises in creating out of the ordinary portraits of musicians and people with interesting faces, as well as photographing some of the world’s finest flowers and gardens.

On the writing side, he has used his research skills to author deep dives into some noteworthy songs beginning with Bryan Ferry’s ‘These Foolish Things’ ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials and ‘All The Young Dudes’ by Mott the Hoople.

Most recently, he has written a biography of Robert Palmer and the stories behind Whitesnake’s ‘Still Of The Night’ and Harry Styles’ anthem to positivity, ‘Treat People With Kindness’. He has also recently penned the fascinating story behind George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four.’

All these can be found here on Medium, along with his reviews of gigs and events and chats with musicians.

Shot! Brighton Pride Festival 2022

Back in the park again with a line up of divas, drag queens, newbies and has-beens, Brighton Pride celebrated its return with big crowds sweltering in the south coast sunshine

Written by Gary Marlowe