Support of the local music scene | Dec 2021

Another cracking live show happened the other night, where SIX fantastic bands, all on the same rock scene, came together in one venue for a Christmas bonanza!
(Funnily I’ve made videos for four of the six bands on the bill!)

(all terrible photos by me)

It happened at The Brudenell Social Club in Leeds on the 11th December 2021.
I got tickets three weeks before and I’m glad I did because it eventually sold out. Which is awesome.

This show happened just in time before Christmas, but also probably just in time before another lockdown happens here in the UK 😬

The room was absolutely packed out and bouncing together, singing along.

Total pure joy for the headliners Eureka Machines

Chris Catalyst from the Eureka Machines is the one who organised and produced the event, curating this fantastic lineup to support his band.

EM have been going over 10 years producing 5 albums. The evenings set list was VERY strong indeed. So many big tunes and smiling faces! (about 400 people)

Here’s the latest video I made with the band (a few years ago, they’ve not recorded anything new recently) for a song called ‘Misery’.

In support of EM was the fantastic Tropical Contact.

Tropical Contact released their one and only album ‘XS’ in 2016 and made a massive impact. They only did a handful of shows in support of the album before parting ways for many reasons. However they reformed 6 years later for a one off show.
It was everything we hoped; loud, daft and pure sonic magic.
(Ed, the guitarist came back from The USA especially for the show 🤯)

I filmed this video with Tropical Contact for their track ‘Hero Brigade’ back in 2016. It was an incredibly fun project! So so so daft. I love watching it back.

The Scaramanga Six we’re here to haunt your dreams

Another utterly fantastic Yorkshire band on the line up was The Scaramanga Six

I talk about these guys a lot on my blog as they’re long time collaborators.
It was a fantastically upbeat performance from them at the show, considering their usual dark tempered music with twists of epic disjointed story telling. They pulled out a crowd pleasing mesh of the euphoric and the mournful.

For this show they brought out a mix of older epic songs and new ones from their recently released album ‘Worthless Music’. (Not a very accurate title for the band as their music certainly isn’t worthless.)

I’ve filmed with The Six before, on MANY videos over the years, but here’s the most recent one from a couple of weeks ago called ‘Big Ideas’

The other three bands on the bill I didn’t get any photos of, and some I didn’t manage to catch due to timings of getting to the venue (first two bands) by they’re worth a mention..

The mightY Chris Catalyst Band opened up proceedings, followed the Leeds’ finest feel-good punk lads The Idol Dead, then in main support slow we’re The Middlenight Men who featured about 9 band members on stage and pulled out some classic sounding swinging rock tunes with big guitars fused with feel good brass and backing singers.
Quite the show!

It’s been ace times with ACE bands recently and I don’t want it to stop.

I’m hoping the live shows will continue even longer as I’ve loved the one this Saturday, but I fear in the New Year we will succumb to another lockdown.

Stay safe out there, enjoy the rock and be excellent to each other. @ashtv.