Attending Leeds Fest has been on my bucketlist forever, I finally made it a a reality this year.
Reading and Leeds Fest is arguably one of the biggest and most famous music festivals of all time, grouped in with Glastonbury, Coachella, Lollapalooza, Sziget, Corona Capital and the likes. The festival has a legacy that stretches back over thirty years, having hosted some of the largest acts in the world and uplifting massive UK artists at the start of their careers. In a way it’s seen as a moment in an artists’ career to both play and headline the festival. This festival being hosted in my hometown has made it a dream of mine to attend, and so when the lineup suited my tastes and the dates lined up, I knew I had to be there. I attended the Friday, spending my time at the mainstage which meant I did unfortunately miss acts such as Adela, Geese and Villanelle. But I also got to catch some of the biggest and most influential acts from the UK and Ireland. Of the acts I did catch here is a list ranking them from worst to best.
KEO
Part of the new wave of indie rock ‘guitar music’, Keo have acquired themselves a very laddish fan base and have quickly grown in popularity since their first releases back in 2025. Keo has gained attention for their live performances, but I didn’t find that to be the case when I caught them. While the music was enjoyable I found their stage presence lacking and stale. They seemed rooted to the spot, occasionally lead singer Finn Keogh would ask for the crowd to get up or sing, but it was hard to give anything back to a band who wasn’t giving much, whether that be due to the nature of playing Leeds fest’s main stage and the mentality that comes with that or me as someone who had previously never heard of them. Whatever the reason it was lacklustre.
Beth Mccarthy
Beth McCarthy had the incredibly hard job of opening up the main stage of the festival and she launched right into it, accompanied by her backing band. It felt like McCarthy knew what her slot meant and so made sure to compensate for that, including an outfit change mid set, switching between multiple instruments and making full use of the catwalk and stage. The crowd particularly took to her with the announcement that she was from York, something a Yorkshire crowd very much appreciated. She even had her only little group of fans across the barricade, but she got everyone involved asking the crowd to sing along to her hit ‘Good Bi”. Beth McCarthy made opening the mainstage look easy.
Skepta
Award winning rapper and grime artist Skepta brought the energy with his set. The performance featured pyrotechnics and large scale set design. He was the only rap artist to feature on the mainstage and for a long time rap artists at Reading and Leeds was seen as controversial in the eyes of the media and the public, particularly the older generations that had attended the first iterations of the festival. Skepta’s music now is ingrained in UK culture and he’s more than deserving of his place on the mainstage. The crowd echoed back his songs word for word, rapping along with him. Prior to his performance the crowd was warned to be ready for the energy he would bring as at the night prior in Reading there had been multiple mosh pits. When the cameras panned out towards the crowd you could truly see what the security had been talking about.
James Marriott
An artist I was familiar with only in name prior to Leeds fest, though my friends were all massive fans. After witnessing his set I understand why. James Marriott is one of the most underrated artists I’ve seen, overlooked in part due to his start on youtube and the stereotypes of influencers turned musicians. His electric stage presence and banter with the crowd, pacing the main stage and dancing along to his own songs, disproved every single one of those stereotypes. When his set finished, everyone was in agreement that he needed to be bigger. James Marriott was a stand out act of the day, his album ‘Warning Signs” is dropping early next year.
Declan Mckenna
Declan Mckenna was the artist I was most excited to see, I’m a long time fan and had previously seen him live in Sydney at the start of 2024. To see him in my hometown was such a dream, I feel in part I’m slightly biassed as a fan, but he is one of the best indie rock artists to come out of the UK in the past decade. It was also during his set that I realised the partial lack of enthusiasm from the crowd might have been due to the fact I’d accidentally ended up in the VIP section. Even during his hits like the massive ‘Brazil’. The crowd just wasn’t as into it as they should have been.
Fontaines DC
There was a lot of buzz surrounding Fontaines DC in the media especially concerning the band’s political views and the nature of the BBC’s censorship in regards to live music. In 2025 there had been several occasions of acts being blacklisted and effectively silenced, specifically the criticism of the British conservative party and the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Bob Vylan and Kneecap faced wide scrutiny with their Glastonbury live sets being removed from iPlayer or even the BBC refusing to stream their performances entirely. Even before Fontaines DC took the stage the crowd was charged, chanting ‘free, free Palestine’ and those chants only grew in volume as the Palestinian flag was draped over the drum set. This flag was removed shortly before their set and their set was also slightly delayed.
When Fontaines DC did eventually come on stage, the crowd erupted. Their set was phenomenal and it is easy to see why they’re one of the largest bands in the world. They played through their hits and their older songs, even playing some material off their upcoming album ‘Dopamine Chamber’. The highlight for me though was hearing ‘I Love You’ in my hometown, there was something very profound about that. However the BBC’s censorship loomed heavy and it seemed to hold them back, the band seemed slightly detached from the crowd and focused solely on going through the motions of performing their music. It seems though that the group were far more engaged with the crowd the night prior in Reading, but it also seems they had no political stunts planned for that performance, not wishing to jeopardise their spot and performance at Leeds Fest. Throughout the performance the crowd continued to chant ‘free, free Palestine’ and as they walked off Grian Chatten grabbed the mic and yelled ‘free Palestine’. There is no footage of their Leeds fest set on the Reading and Leeds official social medias.
Charli XCX
A Charli XCX concert isn’t just a show, it is a performance; a story with a beginning, a climax and an end. Big productions and sets don’t always mean the performance itself will match it, but Charli XCX has always been a performer, long before the cult popularity of ‘Brat’. The tiered stage, the moving elements of the backing band and dancers, the multiple outfit changes, all conveying something more than an incredible show. Themes of mortality, the purpose of art and the pressure of fame and the culture that surrounds that, woven into a dynamic and high energy performance. The accelerated exposure that came with ‘Brat’ finally giving her the money and the means to take her production to the next level and bring her live shows to life in her exact vision.
Many people have criticised the setlist for excluding many of her hits from ‘Brat’ and her earlier works, being that this was a festival and not specifically the tour for ‘Music, Fashion, Film’, but I felt the opposite. This setlist gave me a new appreciation for her album, helping better visualise the themes and setting the precedent of the live performances that were to follow during this album cycle.
