Live At Leeds in The City: The best for discovering new music any festival has to offer.
I still have my battered 2012 wristbands and ticket stubs tucked away, from a time when you could catch The 1975 sweating it out at the Cockpit or Charli XCX lighting up Stylus long before either became household names.
This year’s edition of Live at Leeds in The City promised that same sense of possibility and more. Having spent many years roaming festival fields and day-festival lineups across Leeds and the wider UK, I’ve seen my fair share of brilliant weekends and chaotic discoveries. I love the buzz of discovering new artists, getting to see much-loved bands, seeing how they’ve developed their style since I last saw them, and the joy of bumping into pals along the way.
Live at Leeds in the City has always held a special place in my heart. It’s the one event that feels like a revelation of the City’s music scene.
To get the most out of a festival like Live at Leeds In The City, I like to do my homework. I will watch the recommended videos on who to catch, listen to the official and fan made playlists and speak with agents to see who has a buzz around them. However, even doing that, the beauty is in the spontaneity of walking into a bar and seeing who is behind a microphone. We had that moment at Headrow House, just popping in to catch up with our group, found ourselves in front of Reece Bibby.
With just him and his fellow guitarist, Reece was able to command a crowd and hold their attention throughout his set. Playing homage to his busking days (which I’m positive tour slots in Tokyo and Seoul will have scratched that itch well) Reece covered Kodaline’s All I Want, boasting very impressive vocals and encouraging a crowd singalong. The Blackburn Rovers fan will defo be on my watchlist for future gigs in Leeds.
As well as catching some spontaneous sets during the festival, I did have a list of those must-see acts that acted as the pillars of my schedule. Owing to a lot of acts being on at similar times, I did have to do some good old festival slicing, in which you see 4 or 5 tracks from one artist then make a mad dash to the next venue to catch the last half of another. This trick only works when you really can’t miss either.
When you have an act at Sela, it’s pretty unmissable. Sela is undoubtedly a very cool bar to be performing at if you are on the Live at Leeds line up. The “if you know, you know” street view of the venue being essentially just a door, then walking down into the underground space where you are greeted with a massive disco ball, it announces itself that you are about to have a great night. It’s a must stop on a tour of places to be in Leeds.
Booking Kenzo Jae to play here fits PERFECTLY. The red mood lights and heaped seating gives everything an intimate feel. This works so well with the music Kenzo Jae performs. Having the chance to be up and close when the Bradford-born rapper is offering his music to the audience captures exactly the beauty of these festivals. You can discover so much from just walking through a door.
Kenzo Jae was a great booking for Live at Leeds. The rapper has been shown a showering of support from Northern Music Network, BBC Introducing and Clash. You may recognise Kenzo Jae from the massively popular track “Marigold”. His flow is effortless, lyrics dance from one breath to another, making it impossible not to bop along. Incorporating stories from growing up in Bradford and Northern living, this homegrown star is paving the way for local artists perfecting their crafts.
His latest release, “Softly”, sat perfectly in the setlist, and seeing it live felt like catching up with a pal and getting up to speed with what’s being going on in their life. Softly could easily be a viral sound, it’s got some beautiful mixing, cheeky vibey lyrics and an overall easy to identify beat that’s so synonymous with Kenzo Jae’s performing persona.
After a hop, skip and a jump, I was over at Stylus to see Fat Dog. This was my second time seeing FatDog. First was at Live at Leeds in the Park! They were incredible. They really showcased the versatility of the bookings of the festival. Their placement on the bill was perfect. From my experience of seeing gigs in Leeds, the Stylus has a magic touch that any artist who plays there becomes huge. I’ve seen Royel Otis there, Kingfishr, and not to mention Olivia Dean! So if track records are anything to go off, Fat Dog will soon be the big dog of the music world.
They decorated the stage with as many instruments as possible and above all, just seemed to be having a really good time. The lead singer was addicted to being in amongst the crowd, it got the energy up to 100, and when the performers on stage had a moment in between using their instruments, they were dancing and expressing so much joy to be there. You just know it’s an incredible show when even the sound technicians are dancing as they’re mixing. Everyone who worked on this show seemed to have the same brilliant level of enthusiasm that was completely contagious.
In true scavenger hunt style, this musical map of Leeds venues took us to our final point of the night (for us anyway, for some they were heading to The Wardrobe or other spots in the City Centre for the infamous after parties.)
I ended my night at The Brudenell Social Club. A love letter to Leeds. A casual, fun, retro venue where you can sit in one room with some bar crisps, a pint and even order some pie and mash if you’re particularly peckish watching football on the tv screens, striking up new friendships with the people on the tables across from you…or wander into another room and see a band who have travelled all the way from Florida USA who are giving Vampire Weekend a run for their money.
I picked the latter, but have been known to do the first option on a soggy Saturday evening.
Flipturn are very cool. I found them from the Live At Leeds Official Spotify Playlist and knew they needed to be on my “must see list”. They were worth the long day, and felt very worthy of being my headliner of the night. A song that translated exceptionally well from my Spotify playlist to seeing them live on stage was “Sad Disco”. This comes as no surprise as Flipturn are a well-oiled machine when it comes to touring! This track embodies the American indie vibe that lovingly held hands with “Indie Sleeze” circa 2010s. The clinky guitar, building up drums and smooth vocals bounced off each other so well.
Catching them at Live at Leeds was special. The Jacksonville band only had a handful of UK dates on their tour, and having them travel so far to be performing at The Brudenell felt like a “you had to be there” moment. The crowd was still up for a party, and Flipturn delivered.
The team at Live at Leeds should be giving themselves the warmest, most perfectly brewed post-event cup of tea, to celebrate how much this festival grows year in year out. It’s managed to keep an original identity amongst the evergrowing festival scene, and solidify as one of the events of the year for any music lover.
In a world where our algorithms are so determined to tell us what to listen to and what to experience, there’s something so instinctively human about having these in-person connections when seeing live music.
The beauty of live shows is the uniqueness of the experience, and having these affordable day festivals built with a mixture of homegrown, local talent, and throwing in some well-traveled niche artists really is a perfect offering to the people of Yorkshire.
Main image. Photograph by Jazz Jennings.
