The Great Escape may ostensibly focus on new bands but Friday night’s headline set by Ed Harcourt was a reminder that there is still plenty of homegrown talent ripe for rediscovery.

Despite a series of excellent albums since his career-making Mercury Music Prize-nominated full-length debut Here Be Monsters, Harcourt has largely fallen off the national radar.

His Great Escape set proved he can still write a beautiful song, with Brothers And Sisters from his piano-driven latest album Back Into The Woods equal to Rufus Wainwright at his best.

And he demonstrated a mastery of bruised romanticism akin to Richard Hawley when he picked up his guitar for Murmur In My Heart.

Meanwhile the oldest song in the set, I’ve Become Misguided – sung using a vintage microphone and topped off with a beautiful looped acoustic guitar outro – is clearly where a lot of the Tom Waits comparisons have come from.

And he demonstrated the power of his unamplified voice with an unplugged version of Church With No Religion, performed using the natural reverb of the church as he walked up and down the nave.

Perhaps it is this eclecticism which is his downfall – he cannot be easily pigeonholed into one area, which in this internet-led world makes it harder to pick up casual listeners. Judging by this set, they are certainly missing out.