“Give me everything, Leeds!” yells singer Becky Hill, whose cheery set mixes house, drum’n’bass double drops and disco covers into an easily digestible old-school rave. Such a show would have been unthinkable when Leeds (and its older counterpart, Reading) were steadfastly rock festivals, but the event has transformed to suit an ever-younger audience in bucket hats and zany outfits, here for a post-GCSE blowout and traditional rite of passage.
With genres from pop to rap to dance well represented, this year’s hits range from Wet Leg’s Krautrock-informed indie anthems to Belfast electronic duo Bicep’s beautifully visually enhanced techno. Californian Prince-ish neo-soul festival newcomer Steve Lacy enjoys a warm reception in what he calls a “magical sunset with you”. Earnest Nevada rockers Imagine Dragons even provide a real-life Spinal Tap moment when bare-chested frontman Dan Reynolds yells: “It’s great to be back at Reading!”
Billie Eilish filled the field halfway down the bill four years ago, and now there’s a stampede to see the festival’s youngest ever headliner. “Can you believe what my life turned into?” asks the 21-year-old, but after the growing pains of superstardom she is the picture of playful contentment. She “conducts” the crowd into a choir, incites a mass audience hug and delivers an expansive setlist ranging from early electro-dub hits to this year’s exquisitely heartfelt ballad What Was I Made For? from the Barbie soundtrack. By Saturday evening, rock doesn’t seem so dead after all. Foals’ set turns from a funk-rock party to an almost demonically intense masterclass into what bearded singer Yannis Philippakis calls “the heavy shit”.
When Sam Fender came here as a punter aged 18, someone set fire to his tent with him inside. Now, the Saturday headliner’s magnificently impassioned guitar-sax-drums anthems such as Seventeen Going Under clearly resonate with his huge audience. They get so boisterous that he repeatedly has to stop the show so security can rescue people in the moshpit.
Although Sunday’s bill brings older faces, many here won’t have been born when the Killers first played here in 2005. However, the internet has done its thing: Mr Brightside is reportedly the highest-earning song on Spotify and the band attract one of the biggest crowds in years. Svelte frontman Brandon Flowers is visibly up for the occasion, running through his litany of rock-god moves – pointing at the sky, sounding like a hellfire preacher and yelling “Leeds, you are blessed” – and bringing Las Vegas showmanship to West Yorkshire. They have the songs to back it up and deliver a career-spanning stormer: Somebody Told Me and All These Things That I Have Done prompt huge singalongs and new single Your Side of Town sounds like Abba meets New Order. By the time a triumphantly extended Mr Brightside is sung by 90,000 voices, Flowers’ earlier quip that the band are “purveyors of some of the finest rock ’n’roll music in the world” doesn’t seem so tongue in cheek after all.
