‘You’re at the start of what might be the best weekend of your life,” Manchester’s dance-grooved “pop poet” Antony Szmierek tells a cheering audience, capturing the buzz which brings tens of thousands of teenagers (and older) to Leeds festival (and its Reading counterpart). The former rock festival is a post-GCSE rite of passage, a place for many to don a daft hat, wear as little as possible, toast results or drown sorrows. Two years ago, Szmeriek – imagine the Streets’ Mike Skinner with a ’tache and trackies – was a special needs teacher before becoming a dazzling wordsmith, so draws on his backstory (and gets another cheer) when he tells the kid in the front row who failed all his exams: “It doesn’t matter. You will be someone.”
Other hits include Skye Newman’s raw soul, dance producer Sammy Virji and besuited, sunglasses-wearing New York one-man electronic band Harrison Smith AKA the Dare, whose brilliantly jerky set is like watching Jarvis Cocker fronting LCD Soundsystem. Kids waiting for rap at the main stage look bewildered by Amy Taylor’s raucous, shouty Aussie punks Amyl and the Sniffers. Trippie Redd’s affecting blend of the plaintive and unsettling is beautifully illustrated when a father plays football with his toddlers as the American raps about putting someone in their casket. Otherwise, with fewer stages and big names than previous years, the first day feels somewhat undersold and underpowered. US rap superstar Travis Scott’s headlining set builds in intensity as pyro and fireworks erupt around him, but ends abruptly 35 minutes early, without explanation, to a smattering of boos.
Saturday is visibly busier and while co-headliner Chappell Roan is second on the bill here (she topped it in Reading on Sunday, alternating with Hozier) she pulls by far the biggest crowd all weekend, a sea of pink cowboy hats. Continuing her rapid ascent since 2023’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, the American singer-songwriter is sensational. With a fantasy castle stage set, outfit like an Andy Warhol take on Elizabethan England and female musicians reminiscent of Prince’s band, subjects from LGBTQ+ issues to feminism to meltdowns are channelled into joyous, stylish, era-defining anthems. Few artists have owned the field so effectively in years. Irish singer-songwriter Hozier has to follow that, but the crowd stay put and his cosier vibe explodes into fire when he speaks up for Kneecap, Palestine and equality, and closes with a blazing Take Me to Church.
Sunday is rock day, and Sheffield pop-metal kings Bring Me the Horizon deliver a postmodern eye- and ear-melter of a headline set where the band are stars in their own gigantic video game. Singer Oli Sykes is the demonic commander and the arm-swaying crowd and circle pits become part of the spectacle. Overall, though, it bodes well to see so many triumphs from newer artists, particularly Wunderhorse, who have gone off like a rocket since playing the BBC Introducing stage here last year and pack the hi-tech, usually dance-focused Chevron stage. For all the obvious echoes of Nirvana and REM, the Cornwall-based band’s undefinable edge – not least in wiry frontman Jacob Slater – makes them utterly compelling, and they enrapture an audience of all ages.
