THE FRONT ROW

The UK music festival season is bookended by two of the best inner-city, multi-venue celebrations of emerging musical talent out there. In April it’s Sound City in Liverpool. If It’s October then it must be Live At Leeds. The sheer depth and quality of the line-up of this year’s festival was made apparent by the fact that at 11:30 am I was already faced with a three-way band-clash. Would it be Nottingham Ska-influenced funsters The Chase, post-punk powerhouse prodigies HotWax, or local newcomers The 113?

In the end I plumped for the local option. Leeds fourpiece The 113 (pronounced The One-Thirteen) take their name from the digits of Leeds’s telephone area code and were playing in The Key Club. The venue is dark, subterranean and atmospheric. An ideal place to hear some angry, visceral post-punk tunes. The 113 opened their set with Rats. It sounded like a Pink Floyd tune, played by The Fall, with vocals delivered by the lead singer from Yard Act. The titles of the band’s songs Futility, Idle and Fatigue should have been enough to prepare you for The 113’s performance. The lead singer employed a dark, spoken vocal delivery, and he was ably backed-up by a guitarist and a bassist who played like they were on day-release from a secure unit for criminally insane musicians. A thoroughly compelling set came to a conclusion with the jarring, enveloping Conscience.

One of the great advantages of attending a multi-site event such as Live At Leeds is that it gives you the opportunity to visit new venues. It was my first visit to the Belgrave Music Hall, and mighty pleased about it I was too. It’s an excellent enterprise. The three story edifice comprised of a ground floor bar and canteen with a varied selection of beers and food; a spacious first floor venue with decent sound system, and a little chill-out bar area to the rear; and finally a roof-top terrace area with views over the city.

The venue may have been new to me but the band I saw were not. I’ve been following the the career of Liverpool quintet Reignmaker for a while now, and judging by this display of swaggering, swirling indie-rock they are coming along nicely. In front of a packed audience they put on a confident performance of passionate, charismatic, textured tunes. That confidence was most evident in front man Jude Williams, whose youthful, soaring vocals weaved between intricate hooks and riffs like another instrument. One of the highpoints of the day for me was the band’s performance of the anthemic Find My Own Way .

I stayed briefly in the Belgrave Music Hall to catch a glimpse of the searing, tuneless sonic assault that was south-coast noise merchants Cowboyy, before heading on to Leeds Beckett for a trio of bands – Keg, The Bug Club and The Dream Machine. Pick of the bunch were Liverpool quartet The Dream Machine, a band dubbed by The Coral as being ‘Demonic Choirboys’.

They played a pulsating set of psychedelic, ‘nuggety’ tunes, heavy with fuzziness and religious references to Angels, Jesus, Satan and Temptation. I sense a guilt laden Catholic background lying somewhere in the past. They opened their set with the mazy, hazy Baby Run and the galloping I Still Believe (in Jim Jones). Songs like Wild One and Too Stoned To Die evidenced an inclination to Neil Young et al storytelling Americana. Their performance concluded with the bounding Children, My England a song about ‘Growing up in northern English towns 50 years past their sell-by date’ and the meandering, psychedelic, Doorsesque romp The Last Temptation.

Time for a change of venue as I headed to Wardrobe to see London based, post-punker’s The Rills. As a trio dressed in black with skinny ties who played energetic proto-post-punks tunes with soul-boy sensibilities then certain comparisons were obvious.

Bassist Callum Warner-Webb even patrolled the stage bounding like a young Bruce Foxton – and their songs like Stardog and Spit Me Out certainly had the angst of In The City era The Jam. Given the energy and ragged vibrancy of their songs there’s a touch of The Libertines attitude in The Rills performance too, most evident in song’s like Angler and Pyro.

Performance of the day was undoubtedly provided by the imperious Wunderhorse back in the big room at Beckett. The packed crowd were treated to a mesmerising set of beautifully crafted songs that melded elements of shoegaze, grunge, and psychedelia – songs that seemed to take their titles from a Dulux catalogue – Purple, Teal and Poppy.

Frontman Jacob Slater’s vocals moved seamlessly through the gears drifting from whispering Lou Read to anguished Thom York depending on the needs of the song. The main guitar riff in Leader of the Pack had a vague Lynyrd Skynyrd, Southern-Rock feel. Girl Behind the Glass was an unfussy tune with floaty Evan Dando vocals that seemed to hang in the air. Poppy was a mesmerising closer, opening softly, building slowly and culminating in an all-encompassing cacophony of wah-wahing guitars, spiralling keyboards and funky drum-beats that bounced around your head long after the band had left the stage.

The evening culminated back at The Belgrave Music Hall with Mancunian outfit The Covasettes. After a soundcheck that lasted longer than some band’s entire performance, starting with Wave, moving through latest single The Memory Chaser, and finishing with This Feeling The Covasettes played an effervescent set of feel good tunes. Even break-up songs like Say What You See had a feeling of positivity.

Singer Chris Buxton exudes good-vibes, and you can see why the band’s relentlessly upbeat brand of accessible indie-pop makes them such a big draw at outdoor summer festivals, as well as indoor autumn one’s too.

Until October ’24 Leeds. I’ll see thee Yorkshire.

Ian Dunphy