Up From Below #2: Bella, Leeds Jazz Festival and Neighbourhood Weekender
The North's best newsletter gets jazzy
Welcome back to Up From Below! This week I have thoughts on the Leeds Jazz Festival, Neighbourhood Weekender, a lovely discovery corner and some general music chatter. If you’re just coming across this and it sounds like your sort of thing, please consider subscribing, it’s free (for now), and lets me know that I’m doing something right.
Before we get into the shows from the past couple of weeks, just to let you know, I’m aware the iPhone photography making up these newsletters isn’t great! Especially for someone who calls themselves a photographer.
I’m intending on making the visual part of this newsletter a much bigger feature and putting together galleries to really give you a feel, visually, for every show I talk about. It’s coming, I promise. For now though, enjoy all smartphones have to offer.
I’m also considering adding in little audio snippets from shows. Bringing back bootlegging essentially. I’ve included some videos below but that feels like it belongs on an Instagram story. I think adding in a minute or so of audio from a performance for you to whack on while you read about the vibe in the room would be good? Maybe? Let me know using Substack’s handy poll feature!
Bella at The Vinyl Whistle
I took a trek out to Headingley on the opening night of Leeds Jazz Festival to see Bella launch her new EP, Playing Around. The title couldn’t be more fitting, with her band taking the tight recorded tracks and expanding them into mini improv sessions of their own. She ended the set with a singalong of this belter from the EP, we all went home happy.
Vinyl Whistle is a tiny, exceptionally warm place for a venue, but it somehow works, and it’s really nice to see independent venues like this making things work in this year of our vengeful lord.
Neighbourhood Weekender
Myself and my long-suffering other half took a trip out to the wonderful wacky world of Warrington over the bank holiday weekend to take in the sounds of Gang of Youths/Everything Everything/Confidence Man and Pulp.
The weather was glorious, the sound was decent, the burgers cost a tenner. Was it worth navigating the North’s truly awful public transport system? Probably, yeah.
We got there in time to see Gang of Youths play a fantastic, frantic early-evening set, the energy mostly fuelled by frontman Dave Le'aupepe’s Everton side being stuck in a relegation battle while they were on stage. Good news Dave, you’re staying up.
We then scrambled over to the “Big Top”, aka “Massive Tent”, aka “Large Gazebo” stage to see Everything Everything who didn’t seem to get much time on stage despite absolutely ripping the slot they were given. Always a good choice to seek them out.
Confidence Man were, as always, a stupid amount of fun. Definitely more fun than being elbowed out of the way after their set by the under-12s trying to scramble to the barrier to see Anne Marie afterwards. We’ve all done it though.
Pulp sounded like they’d never been away and the crowd was mainly 6 Music dads, which is entirely our vibe.
All in all, Neighbourhood Weekender seemed pretty well organised, and when put up against the absolute shit-show that was Slam Dunk on the same weekend, it looks like we got a taste of paradise in comparison.
The only complaint I’ve seen surrounding the Warrington Weekender was overcrowding within the VIP area, and I’d expect the only response to be an increase in the price of VIP tickets for next year to deter the riff-raff from causing chaos in the “posh toilets”.
Gig Recs
There’s not much to recommend this week, gigs are pretty quiet as we sit between festival weekends. I’m heading to Manchester tonight to see Kevin Morby and tick off a new venue (New Century Hall) - tickets are still floating around for that if you’re that way inclined, and you should be.
The only other pick I have is Built To Spill at The Brudenell, which is also tonight(!), so grab ‘em quick if you’re a fan of 90s indie rock and let me know if they play Carry The Zero.
Discovery Corner
For Discovery Corner this week, my pick is KITY by Marci. Marci (aka Marta Cikojevic) is the keyboardist for one of my favourite bands, TOPS, and releases her own tunes under the name Marci that truly hit the same pleasure centre in your brain. It’s really nice, soft pop with a beautiful retro sound.
Her self-titled album from last year is a real treat and this new single builds on top of that vibe perfectly - just sweet, soulful vocals over the top of noodling keys and guitars.
The Playlist
Thanks for reading this issue of Up From Below. If you enjoyed it, you can subscribe to make sure it shows up in your inbox every Monday from now on, so please do that, cheers!