Live At Leeds 2010

We awake on an unspectacular Saturday morning knowing that the day will be anything but. For May Bank Holiday has become something of a music haven in Leeds over the past few years and 2010 will prove to be the highlight of the bunch. Live At Leeds has steadily progressed year on year and this year is its’ triumph: 13 venues and over 150 bands for the sum of £15 - the best value-for-money all day music festival in the country? That being said, the old adage of quality not quantity is an apt one – if all the bands are terrible, it doesn’t count for much.

The Twilight Sad luckily are an indication of the quality to come. Playing at 1pm in the Brudenell Social Club, the dark and extremely crammed room suits their music and the mood they create perfectly. Swathes of noise fill the venue as their reverb heavy sound creates an almost hypnotic effect (one you would assume due to the time of day is not brought on by heavy alcohol consumption, though this is Yorkshire) broken only by the pounding rhythms Mark Devine provides. Singer James Graham seems genuinely chuffed by the volume of people in the room, stating “We thought there’d be hardly anyone here, thank you so much”. Their performance justifies the efforts of the people who made the effort to get here – live they have an even greater intensity than on record. The set is mostly made up of songs from latest album ‘Forget The Night Ahead’ - whilst many felt ‘Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters’ was the stronger record, it’s this album that provides the set highlights in ‘Reflection Of The Television’ and ‘I Became A Prostitute’. Graham’s voice combined with the lyrical matter create a genuine sense of emotion: one that doesn’t necessarily fill you with joy for the rest of the day but certainly one that leaves the following bands a lot to live up to. An all too brief set is completed and a large proportion of the crowd disperse, wondering if we’ve already seen the performance of the day.

The proportion of the crowd that leaves is unfair to Swanton Bombs though. The music may be very different from Twilight Sad, yet they create a racket that almost matches the intensity of the performance before. Their take on classic blues means there’s plenty of meaty riffs, howled vocals and a rhythm section tighter than a gnat’s chuff. They’re extremely entertaining and for a two piece pack one hell of a punch. Recent single ‘Viktoria’ gains the most recognition but the whole set blows any cobwebs in the venue away. It also wakes up any of the audience who may still be adjusting to live music at this time, through liberal use of cowbell if nothing else.

It’s off to Josephs Well for local band Sketches next. Live At Leeds makes it an aim to include many Leeds bands in the line up and provide a platform for greater exposure. Sketches are a band who don’t deserve it, at least not at this point. How any band with two drummers can make music that is so restrained (if being brutally honest, at times dull) is beyond us. Their sound is an amalgamation of things that are currently popular – the vocals at times reminiscent of Wild Beasts’ Hayden Thorpe, whilst sections of their set range from sounding like a Temper Trap B side, to American emo-tinged rock to post-punk in the vein of Kubichek et al. Yet they just don’t have enough vitality or energy to pull off the anthemic quality they’re aiming for or make it their own. The crowd are dead for nigh on the entire set and we leave hoping that the next local band we see will prove to represent the region more favourably.

They do. In previews, much of the attention for Leeds bands playing was focused upon the feyer, gentler side of the music scene – Sam Airey and Blood Oranges for instance. These Monsters prove that Leeds doesn’t just produce bands that hold cake fairs but ones that DESTROY THEM. They’re loud (managing to overcome the limitations of the Refectory’s sound system), they’re in your face, they’re weird – ranging from brash riffs to intricate guitar lines, saxophone solos and obscene time signature changes. They’re not afraid to match the brashness of the music with crowd interaction either, deriding the arrogance of Hadouken in hanging their background cover up 5 bands before they’re due on in genuinely hilarious fashion. Their avant-garde rock is certainly the more unusual take on hardcore but one that is worth the patience initially needed. Closing on ‘Call Me Dragon’ is a wise choice as it catches the attention of the crowd already forming for The Bronx, who by the end head nod and foot stomp despite clearly having never heard the band before. As good an indication of their performance as my 150 words can give.

The Bronx up the ante considerably. Whilst These Monsters were abrasive, their take on hardcore isn’t designed to incite mosh pits. The Bronx are. The relative straight forwardness of their music means that they can go full steam ahead in the live arena and by Christ, do they. Matt Caughran’s voice sounds like the embodiment of pure rage as they tear through a set that seems to satisfy the fans with an equal spread through their back catalogue. ‘Shitty Futures’ is ferocious… actually the whole set is, but ‘Shitty Futures’ especially so. Their apparent belief they’re playing a student-exclusive festival (they make reference to ‘you college kids’ several times in the set) may have fuelled the extra bile with which they play, their working class background inciting a ferocity which was a sight to behold. They play the longest set of the day so far, close to an hour (unusual for a punk band) and still the crowd call for an encore. The ribs of many should be thankful they didn’t fulfil the request.

Some much-needed sustenance meant that the next band taken in (after trying and failing to see the ABC Club at the Packhorse, being unable to get anywhere near the entrance to the gig room) were Tubelord. Theirs is a name often mentioned that hasn’t quite translated into the success expected of them thus far – what is apparent during their set is that whilst they may not be as popular as anticipated, their fans are really into them. The Library is filled to the brim yet at least half the people in here know every word to every song. This only adds to the anthemic, soaring quality of Tubelord’s music – the call-and-response sections of the set initiated by the band see singer Joe’s voice completely engulfed by the collective roars from the crowd. A common theme for the day, an all too brief set ends on ‘I Am Azerrad’ and everyone is left with easily the worst scheduling clashes to sort through. Blood Red Shoes, Johnny Foreigner, Wild Beasts and 65daysofstatic all occupy the 9pm slot at various venues.

We plump for the latter and never has a performance justified a choice so clearly before. 65daysofstatic are, without a shadow of a doubt, the best British live band there is. Their new album ‘We Were Exploding Anyway’ is phenomenal, drawing completely different influences from the rest of their work – at times sounding like what The Prodigy had so desperately wanted to achieve with their last album. Opener ‘Go Complex’ is the greatest proof of this, it’s wildly oscillating synths swallowed whole by shoegaze-esque guitars 2/3rds of the way through. The majority of ‘WWEA’ is played in their hour set (expertly judging the mood of a crowd who have by now been drinking for several hours and want to dance/jump around) and older material played is in a similar vein - ‘Await Rescue’, ‘65 Doesn’t Understand You’ with only ‘Fix The Sky A Little’ providing brief respite from the full on aural assault. ‘Weak4’’s guitar issues prevent it from being the mania-inducing song it should have been, Rob Jones’ vicious rhythms deserving of the interplay with Joe Shrewsbury’s guitar that is used to such great effect on record. We cannot find enough superlatives to describe the sheer joy ‘Tiger Girl’ induces. It’s breathtakingly superb. As it builds and builds, grins and shouts of joy are seen throughout the whole audience who know that this could well be the culmination of the greatest performance not just of the day but possibly the year. As it ends, there’s riotous applause. No encore is provided and it shouldn’t be – nothing will top that.

On a personal note, I didn’t encounter a single queue for a venue throughout the entire day – one of the main issues people took umbrage with last year. Live At Leeds 2010 was incredibly well organised (bar that horrific 9pm clashathon), incredibly good value for money and an incredibly good day. Kudos to all involved.