“I cannot emphasise enough how grateful I am to be covering this Festival. It’s been a part of my life for over a decade and yesterday was just brilliant.” Charlotte Staunton Gill 24 August 2024
Day 1 of Leeds Festival is met with a festival essential….bad weather. But this isn’t just any bad weather, this is a storm, and not just any storm – it’s storm Lilian. Making sure I had my notifications turned on the Reading and Leeds app we were alerted before 10am that the Radio 1 tent and Aux tent had to be cancelled for the day, and entrance into the arena would be delayed. This is the right decision. People’s safety should always be the number one priority. As gutting as it is that acts were pulled – in the words of Taylor Swift, at least we are mourning shows and not lives.
Walking through the Festival grounds, it didn’t feel like anyone’s mood had really been that affected by the stage cancellations. I will say that naturally, because of the reduced number of stages being opened, it did mean that crowds felt a lot more condensed. This was turned into an advantage for Irish band Kingfishr, who technically opened the Festival Republic stage.
Fun fact – my mum told me to check out this band as they’re from the west coast of Ireland. The boys did really really well. The lead vocalist was an excellent frontman, his crowd interactions got everyone hyped up and there was so much love and excitement in the tent.
Like Kingfishr, Leeds Festival will shower you in acts who are debuting new tracks or playing festival slots for the first time.
An incredible stage to visit if you are wanting to discover new artists is the BBC Introducing stage. The stage was jam packed with an array of artists. I managed to see Leeds’ Venus Grrls, Prido and the stage headliner Delilah Bon.
Delilah Bon, travelling the not too almighty distance from Barnsley, may be local, but her talent is global. When being introduced onto the stage by BBC Intro presenter they said “If the storm didn’t manage to blow you away, Delilah Bon will.” I couldn’t agree more. She is so sure of herself, her message, her image. She is just incredible.
Playing with a slight overlap from Delilah Bon, on the mainstage were Catfish and the Bottlmen. Eager to catch CFATBM’s festival exclusive, I had to do the classic festival run between stages (a festival is a great place to do a mini marathon without realising it.) I would say the sound wasn’t great on the main stage but I put that down to the wind as when moving around the crowd there were spots that sounded better than others. The crowd was really dedicated and up for a good sing-song.
Playing the hits such as Kathleen, Cocoon and opening with my fave track, Homesick. A sea of crocodiles, which have become the symbol of the band, swept out through the crowd. There were flares, people on shoulders, it really set the bar for headliners on the opening night. There was a strong fan presence throughout the Festival on the Friday, with people either sporting Catfish merch or Man City shirts for headliner Liam Gallagher. We saw a lot of people wearing Newcastle United shirts for Sam Fender last year and the visuals work brilliantly. Spotting all the retro City shirts whilst I was walking around was amazing, a bit baffling as to why you’d get the odd person in a Man United shirt, but each to their own.
To close off the Mainstage on Friday, we had Liam Gallagher, paying homage to the groundbreaking, history making, Oasis album Definitely Maybe. Celebrating a huge 30 years of the album with 1994 projected across the screens and an inflatable globe in the middle of the stage, this was an artist everyone was really excited for.
Oasis are such an institute when it comes to British music. We owe a lot to the Manchester brothers and the love was definitely (no Maybe about it) shown last night. Crowds bellowed out beloved tracks such as Half The World Away, Supersonic and Live Forever.
Day 1 showed that Leeds Festival is both adaptable and nostalgic. They can welcome in new faces and nourish them whilst still taking very good care of the old faithfuls. The bucket list bands that you see arm in arm with your mates, making memories that will last a lifetime.
I can’t wait to see what Day 2 has in store.
All photography by Mark Wheelwright. More to be added here soonest! Main image: Catfish & The Bottlemen.
