Live at Leeds returns in triumph on day when hometown bands lived up to city's heritage

Live at Leeds all-day festival returned in style at the weekend, overcoming wind, rain and a major blaze in the heart of the city centre.

While fire crews doused a building next to Electric Press at Millennium Square on Saturday night, at exactly the same time Sea Power were raging on stage at Leeds Beckett University.

The days of trees and foliage on stage and self-confident arty ideals may have receded for the older, perhaps, more world-weary band formerly known as British Sea Power.

Along with the name, the look has also changed with lead singer Scott Wilkinson sporting a pick-up truck driver baseball cap the wrong way round as if to say "I'm not arty anymore".

But Sea Power still rule the waves musically and were in impressive form in a set dominated by new material from the group's recent album Everything Was Ever which showed both their social conscience and talent for hooklines still firmly intact.

Boasting 150-plus artists, 14 venues and 16 stages on a day moved from its usual slot in May to October for the first time, certain themes tend to emerge during any Live at Leeds, though undoubtedly what you choose to go to affects the outcome.

The up-coming generation of guitar bands that this reviewer managed to catch excelled at what is best described as dark disco - that very Leeds blend of Krautrock groove, post punk dynamics and art-dance-rave aesthetics.

Todmorden’s finest Working Men’s Club were impressively uncompromising on the Leeds 02 Academy stage though, as James Littlewood, my colleague from our Charm magazine days said, they were like “15 seconds of sampled New Order from the 1980s played forever”.

The last time I set eyes on Joe Evans he was the skinny lead singer of atmospheric Leeds-based psych noir band Chaika who I brought to Major Tom's in Harrogate back in 2015 for one of my Charm gigs.

Now Joe is energetic front man for Manchester's W H Lung, a more tuneful, less intense, slightly less electronic version of Working Men's Club.

Dancing like Ian Curtis of Joy Division, much like Working Men’s Club’s lead singer Sydney Minsky-Sargeant, Joe has changed a lot in that time, unsurprisingly.

But he has become a better front man for it, despite dressing like a sheep wrangler from the early days of TV soap Emmerdale when farming mattered to the plotlines, a look that is, admittedly, totally on trend, so what do I know.

In complete contrast, downstairs in the lovely Sela bar, Before Breakfast’s Gina, Lucy, Debra and Annie played delightfully precious chamber pop dominated by keyboards, cello and harmony.

Talented and charming, accusations of being 'cabaret twee' might be thrown around in the hush of the packed crowd if it weren't for the strength of their provocative lyrics and their feminist ideals - and their likable between song banter.

At one point lead singer Gina Walters introduces a song - it might have been called I’m A Good Friend - with a polite suggestion that we may want to consider whether having two boyfriends at the same time is the natural way of being.

After having reviewed every Live at Leeds every single year since this brilliant event was first launched by promoters Futuresound in 2007 before BBC 6 Music quite had the sway it now holds over the indie scene, it may be this reviewer is finally slowing down.

I even somehow manage to miss Gruff Rhys at Brudenell Social Club.

Evidence of this comes with Pop Vulture, another of those great Leeds-based angular danceable no-wave bands who, knowingly or not, stand in a line first established in the city by bands such as the Gang of Four and Delta 5 in the late 1970s.

So popular is the appearance by Ben, Jacoc, Luke and Sam at Oporto on Call Lane, people are spilling out of the jam-packed band room and no amount of pushing or squeezing is going to alter that.

The answer? Grab a pint and sit back on the comfy leather couch in the bar as the glorious sounds seep through the wall just behind your head, relaxing, enjoying but still reviewing.