The Prodigy and The Chevron Stage Top A Much Better 2nd Day At Leeds Festival.

Review and Photos by John Hayhurst

Watching Maxim, Liam and the rest of The Prodigy busting out those classic 90’s and 00’s festival anthems at the end of a busy day at Bramham Park was one of the highlights of 2024’s event. Opening with ‘Breathe’ and ‘Omen’ it was a relentless start to showcase the new Chevron stage with its LED lightnet covering the huge space.

Finally open after Storm Liliane battered the site, which rendered the BBC Radio 1 stage unuseable for the the whole weekend, the Chevron lifted spirits and by the time ‘Firestarter’ kicked in with a dedication to Keith Flint the whole place was bouncing and thoughts of broken tents were long forgotten.

Last night we revelled in nostalgic Oasis 90’s debut album ‘Definitely Maybe’ and Liam Gallagher had the biggest turnout at the main stage, teasing the crowd with “This ones called Wonderwall” before playing the next track on the album. He won’t be playing that live anytime soon unless the rumours are true about the reunion shows planned for 2025. ‘Up In The Sky’ was dedicated to all the people that lost their tents and ‘Half A World Away’ dedicated to Noel, who sings it a lot better!

Earlier in the day we had two stunning sets on the BBC Introducing Stage- firstly Venus Grrrls from Leeds “Hexed” us all by playing some decent rock n roll music and then Delilah Bon topped that with her energetic brat rap show. It was a shame that the BBCRadio 1 tent wasn’t running as Ashnikko would have been a perfect draw for some new Delilah Bon fans.

Elsewhere on the Friday afternoon Matt Maltese was crooning at the keys and trying to lift spirits with his emotional bittersweet melodies, Michael Aldag had a group of student girls singing their hearts out on the BBC Intro stage with some cuts from his ‘Sorry For Everything’ anthology.

Rachel Chinouriri played the Festival Republic stage and justified her shortlisting for BBC Sound of 2023 with a brilliant performance showcasing her debut album ‘What a devastating turn of events’. So there was plenty to like about Friday aside from the poor weather.

Saturday started slow with a slew of bands on the smaller stages that didn’t quite meet the mark. Seb Lowe apart, Big Special, Disgusting Sisters and The Oozes were all quite disappointing and didn’t really live up to the hype put out by the Leeds Festival app.

Seb Lowe has the songs and the political stance and wastes no time in getting the crowd on side, this lad has a talent and could go far very quickly, we’ve seen the likes of Gerry Cinnamon headline festivals and Jamie Webster playing to big crowds of devoted followers, I think it won’t be long before Seb Lowe does something similar, a decent turnout on the Festival Republic Stage.

Big Special felt like a poundshop Sleaford Mods or Soft Play without the real driving energy and passion expected, it’s poetry set to drums and backing sounds. However, they were better than the next band on the BBC Intro stage, The Disgusting Sisters (who appear to be genuine sisters) put on a show which seems to take Shampoo’s “Uh- Oh We’re In Trouble” song but they make it last 20 minutes, it would take X factor 2 seconds to hit the ‘next’ button to move on somewhere else.

We lasted half a song before moving to see The Oozes, who looked amazing but didn’t live up to the billing of punk raucous rhythm section meets driving guitars, there was a shouting red creature at the front but as a band it didn’t feel cohesive enough, it was neither scary or punk, or raucous. Fully expecting the red creature to be on the speakers and in the audience, it felt like a tame camp kids party with a clown thrown in for good measure.

So we ventured to Chevron for a look at this new stage and on there was LeoStayTrill, a South London rap artist who ran from one side of the stage to the other, not sure why it took him a good 20 minutes to actually get on stage, but that was similar stance to 21 Savages on Friday, he came on for the last 10 minutes of his set, both artists leaving the majority of their set time to the backing DJs.

Jorja Smith looked resplendent in a football/rugby top and another one draped around her shoulders. The voice was amazing as ever and she casually throws ‘Blue Lights’ in on song two in her set. Promoted to main stage after the BBC Radio 1 stage became out of action and filling the gap that Renee Rap left in the schedule.

If you want to see some proper punk then the Lambrini Girls are for you, sadly clashing with Jorja Smith but we caught the last song in their set where Phoebe Lunny is in the audience getting everyone to sit down and the next minute she’s tying a Palestine flag to the tent pole. Take note ‘The Oozes’ thats what a raucous punk show looks like!

Then we came to the most anticipated performance of the day, Spiritbox are a band I’ve never seen before, but have been on my list for a while, Courtney LaPlante is able to switch from full on growling screamo to euphoric soft vocals in an instant. It sent the Jorja Smith fans running out of the arena as she proudly announced “We are here to spoil your day”. Crazily sandwiched between Jorja Smith and Two Door Cinema Club this Canadian metal band rocked the whole place and LaPlante and her husband Mike Stringer more than justified their placement on the main stage. Whilst Two Door had a bigger audience they were just twee in comparison.

Ashnikko did turn up but on the Saturday and played a storming risque set with her two dancers, “Where’s My Working Bitches At?” she calls and several thousand reply, so great that she was able to stay an extra day at Leeds and fit a show in on the FR stage.

Avoiding Gerry Cinnamon and Blink 182 we favoured the dance scene and Chevron stage with Skrillex putting in a great warm up set for The Prodigy although the lightnet wasn’t in full flow for him as the sun was just setting. Across from the Chevron in the Festival Republic stage Tik Tok Star David Kushner managed to find a space to play a half hour set to a packed crowd in there. However, there was no denying that The Prodigy were a key draw on the Saturday and with full production with the lightnet and green lazers bursting into the sky, we left with much to smile about, and another day to look forward to.