Apart from the fantastic PA, the cheap beer and the general buzz around the place, it's events like this that make me especially fond of the Brudenell and the Leeds scene in general. The British Wildlife Festival has is actually staged across several venues and runs from Thursday to Sunday, but Saturday is the main day, with bands playing the main room and games room at the Brudnell, plus a handful of acts next door in the poky basement room at Royal Park Cellars. It also epitomises what both the Brudenell and the Leeds scene is all about.
With doors at 3.30 and running past midnight, it's arranged so that one band starts in one room a few minutes after the previous band's finished in the other. It's therefore possible to see almost all of the bands if one so wishes (apart from the slot around 9pm when there's a band on simultaneously in all rooms) - at least in theory. In practice, a little bit of time out, some breathing space and a break for food means attempting to watch - and review - all of the acts would be impractical.
Still, deciding what to miss isn't easy. Leeds is certainly cultivating some amazing talent right now, and eclecticism and experimentalism are the dominant features.
Blacklisters kick things off with a reliably powerful and intense set. Playing on the floor, in front of the stage – as if they're not sufficiently in your face on stage - they crank out the kind of blistering set that they've made their regular standard. Opening with 'Swords' and closing with 'Trick Fuck', they bludgeon their way through a set of largely unreleased and new material, including a track entitled 'Ask Yourself a Question. The Answer is Go Fuck Yourself' and a wholly unrecognisable version of 'Club Foot' by Kasabian due to appear on a forthcoming release. If they had, it would have probably been quite something. Nevertheless, the entire set is ear-bleedingly loud and blindingly intense, and if I'm honest, I can't think of a more consistent or impressive live act around right now. I'm not just talking locally, either. They certainly set the bar high for the rest of the bill.
If Ultra Humanitarian inspired chin stroking and ponderous nods with their Moog noodles atop a lively, if ultimately wearisome drum solo, then Gum Takes Tooth took the same two-piece format in a completely unexpected direction, assaulting our aural receptors with a blast of hybridized noise that sounded - and felt - like a collision of Napalm Death, Prurient and lord knows what. Melding live drums with screaming, distorted vocals and synths through a colossal rack of effects pedals to devastating effect, they blast the crowd with a bass-heavy blitzkrieg fusion of Grindcore, Extreme Electronica, Metal and Electro. The result is both shock and awe.
Beards proved to be the surprise act of the day. Looking like a fairly winsome indie trio, they threw out some seriously angular guitar shapes that battled with and ricocheted in all directions off some robust bass. Meanwhile, drummer Kathyrn Gray really does pound out some hefty rhythms and magnificently jarring vocals. It's most unexpected from a girl who looks like she’d be more interested in crochet than abrasive no-wave punk as performed by Pram around the time of their first album, but she really brings some sharply pointed corners to the band's choppy sound. And they played far from quietly.
Taking time out to find somewhere to eat meant that I missed Bad Guys, Juffage, Thee Cuss Words and Trumpets of Death (who on reflection I rather wish I had seen), but my ears needed the break as much as my brain, which was beginning to reel from the back-to-back performances of wall-to-wall intensity. Not that I'm complaining, by any means.
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Back at the Brudenell with time to spare, the place was really beginning to fill up for Kong's performance. Now, they may be two-thirds Oceansize (now ex-Oceansize), but if ever there was a band more different from their neo-prog progenitors, it's probably Kong. The masked trio play on the floor, their jabbering, screaming, slurring front man challenging the crowd to prize them from their equipment and take over. During their set of seriously fucked-up, lurching hardcore of the variety that ground it way out of Chicago in the early 90s, they very nearly do, too. The bassist is wearing only his underpants – something he seemingly makes a habit of. They may draw influence from the likes of Shellac (compare the guitar line to the former's 'Blood of a Dove' to the latter's 'The Admiral' some time), but their performance is far more riotous and teeters on the brink of self-annihilation. It's sonic mayhem squared, and the crowd go absolutely mental. The band clearly already did a while back.
Passing on Three Trapped Tigers and Serious Sam Barrett in favour of watching Hired Muscle over at the Cellars, I had time to kill. The jukebox may have been as lousy as the beer, but the temperature was at least lower than in the increasingly steamy Brudenell. More importantly, Hired Muscle proved to be well worth the wait. Plying in virtual darkness and battling problems with leads and microphones, they tore through a Fugazi-influenced, grunge-infused set that was hard to fault. It's a shame that with two other bands on at the same time, the audience was substantially smaller than they deserved. Still, the small room was full enough and those present were suitably appreciative - as well they should have been.
Returning to the Brudenell, things were running some way behind schedule, and after the raffle draw, Vessels took to the stage significantly later than planned. It was completely unintentional that I should catch them on the first and last nights of their current tour, but it was interesting to compare the two. The guitars seemed strangely low in the mix, with the bass and synths more prominent than usual, but it seemed to work pretty well nevertheless. In front of a home crowd, they seemed a lot more relaxed and better acquainted with the set than a fortnight previous as the songs segued from one to the next almost seamlessly.
Dead on my feet and on the brink of passing out due to the heat, I made for my train before the end of the set, but left feeling entirely satisfied that I had witnessed a full afternoon and evening of music of a rare quality and diversity. See you down the front again next year!
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