Live at Leeds, now in its 7th year, is one of the best city festivals in the UK.  With its focus on upcoming bands and local talent, it’s a day to experience bands who everyone else will know about next year. Artists like Mumford and Sons, The Maccabees and Ed Sheeran have played Live At Leeds on the cusp of their explosion into the mainstream.

 

First we take a look at the much heralded, Tribes, playing at the O2 Academy The Camden based indie rockers certainly know how to put on a show. Making their hits come to life on stage for the rowdy Leeds crowd who jump and dance and sing to every hit. “Corner of an English Field” in particular sounded epic live. Of all the acts today, they got the biggest reaction from the audience. And it’s not hard to understand why.

 

However, Live at Leeds is also an opportunity for local acts to get some much needed attention. So onward to Holy Trinity Church to hear Dancing Years. Formally, known as Joseph and David (before the band grew numbers), their anthemic, melodic folk music has been allowed to come to life. They definitely get the honour of performing in the most picturesque venue of the day and it seems fitting that such a beautiful, gentle voice as David Henshaw’s , should be performed with messianic decorations in the background. Ok, I may be going too far there, but in the space of 30 minutes, they won the crowd over with “Borderlines” followed by the wonderfully melancholic “Here’s to My Old Friends”. I hate to attach a ‘they’re going to be huge’ label to them, so I won’t. All I will say is, their music is beautiful, haunting, uplifting and good for the soul. Listen to them and go see them. Now. Go on. I can wait.

 

From the Heavenly setting of Trinity Church, it feels like we are going straight into hell as we venture under the arches of the train station and into The Cockpit for Swim Deep. Swim Deep are a Birmingham based band whose debut album, “Where The Heaven Are We”, has yet to come out, yet based on the power of the first few singles, “King City”, “Honey” and “The Sea” they pulled a full capacity crowd. I must admit here of riding on the coattails of hearing a lot about Swim Deep but not actually having heard them before. And I get the impression based on the reaction of most of the crowd, that I’m not alone. That said, there were a cohort of diehard fans at the front. All in all, they are fine. But their live presence doesn’t excite me. “The Sea” is a pretty good song and they perform it well. Maybe proper judgement should wait until the debut album comes out. Incidentally, I got chatting to a couple of reporters from a certain weekly music magazine who basically think Swim Deep are the second coming in music. Who knows maybe they’re right.

 

As the evening draws on we head over to The Stage at Leeds Met for Birmingham based Soul singer Laura Mvula (it seems Birmingham is having a musical renaissance at the moment). Laura has had ‘”The Voice of 2013” stamp put on her by The Evening Standard and a packed audience at the Leeds Met came to see if she could live up to that mantel. Initially she is impressive. Plus I was surprised they had managed to fit a full size Harp on that small stage. And needless to say, her voice is stunning. But I didn’t feel like she won the audience over at any point. In fact, at some points it felt like she wanted to let rip and shout at a rather raucous audience. Though she was very polite in asking for quiet, her face looked like she wanted to say ‘Shut the f*ck up’ before “Green Garden”, a highlight of the night. When the audience were quiet, it was stunning to listen to. Performing the majority of songs from her debut album “Sing To The Moon”, there was another jarring moment during “Is There Anybody Out There?” When she asked the question, she got little response. “Oh, that usually gets a cheer” she said with a hint of disappointment. And I was left unsure whether her not being able to connect with the audience was her fault or ours.

 

Ending the day at the Brudenell Social Club seemed fitting. Frequently cited as one of the best small venues in the UK, it’s headline act this year came in the form of Leeds’ very own The Sunshine Underground (yes, they’re still going). Arriving on stage a full 45 minutes late for their slot, they already had a tough mountain to climb, as most of the crowd had been drinking since early afternoon. But there was a sense of anticipation from the crowd. The Indie Ravers debut album, “Raise The Alarm”, released back in 2006 still stands up as a stunning example of the ‘Indie Boom’ of that decade. And a sense of nostalgia was in the air. Once they arrived, the audience was happy to see them, moving and swaying to the opening song. That is until the band walked off citing technical difficulties. Hmm… Not long after, they reappeared with the only interaction from the band being “How you doing Leeds?” or “Can you turn the Bass/Echo/Vocal/Guitar up/down?”. Having said that, new single “Finally We Arrive” actually sounded pretty good. And who knows, maybe with the impending release of their third album we will experience something of a TSU comeback. Then, they walked off again because the bass was a little quiet. Empty plastic glasses began to rain down on the stage and a full 90 minutes after their gig was meant to start, I left. A rather shambolic, yet entertaining way to end the day. 

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