The Wedding Present : The Brudenell Social Club, Leeds - Sat 28th May 2016
“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” said a wise person…once…long ago…for me the way to my heart is buying me tickets to The Wedding Present!!! To put any sort of icing on this very big birthday cake would be to buy the tickets for The Wedding Present playing in a quite unique and intimate place as The Brudenell Social Club…let’s just say that the icing was well and truly put on the cake.
I’ve never hidden my love for the Weddoes…I was proud to wear my Bizarro and Seamonsters t-shirts at school non-uniform days and college on a somewhat daily basis…I wonder sometimes if I was known as ‘that Wedding Present’ kid. My love affair or marriage made in heaven came on that fateful day when my brother came back from Uni with a blank tape with George Best on one side and Bizarro on the other…I have never looked back.
I will admit that I was lost to them for a bit after Watusi was released…what an underrated album that is by the way! So when I found out that they would be touring their Saturnalia album I needed to revisit an album that I had not really given a chance when it was first released in 1996. Once I gave it a listen nearly 20 years on…I found that I really like it…music is a crazy unexplainable thing sometimes.
We headed out late on Saturday morning with a Leeds heat wave in full effect and stumbled upon the Alchemist cocktail bar on top of the Trinity shopping centre…to be fair…the weather was lovely and the place looked busy…ah well…when in Leeds.
Anyone who is a fan of taking in the magic of drinks mixologists then you can fill your boots in here. We went for a Hot & Cold Espresso Tini and a White Cosmo and both drinks didn’t disappoint.
They were that good that we would pop back in for another two later on in the day.
We had a fantastic afternoon catching up with some quite amazing friends before heading towards the Hyde Park area of Leeds where the Brudenell Social Club can be found. After a 30 minute wander around old haunts in the student area we hit our most important and hardest decision of the day…either go into the Royal Park pub and grab a pre-gig pint or go for a gelato in the Ice Scoop gelato shop…the Brewdog won!
And onto the Brudenell…as I said earlier this place is a unique place to see a band…reminded me very much of the Westgarth Social Club in Middlesbrough but with more of an open feel to it. It has made its name as being a bit of a secret gig place for bands like the Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand (under the name The Black Hands) and The Kooks.
They are in an amazing position through the hard work of their management that they have been able to put on what seems like a different act every night…with some absolute hidden gems being found along the way. It was in thanks to the management…well…to Nath that we managed to get in at all…it looked like we were not getting in after a mix up with tickets…luckily we were in…and many thanks to Nath!!!
After getting the drinks in it was time to scour the merchandise…only to find Mr David Gedge himself working the table…a few gulps of IPA later and I managed a few words with the legend and even managed a photo…like the big geek fanboy I am!!!
I even managed a quick chat with Twitter’s very own Wedding Present encyclopaedia Leigh (Bomaya)…man alive he knows his stuff.
By this time the support group were done and it was ready for the Wedding Present to do their thing.
This was the first time that I had seen them as a five- piece with Danielle (from Cinerama) making a welcome addition to the band with keyboards and backing vocals.
They play Saturnalia very well indeed…just as I knew they would…with plenty of banter from the crowd that David Gedge was quick to reply to…. from Sam Beer-Pearce on guitar to Katharine Wallinger’s rumbling bass and Charles Layton’s drumming it was all spot on…and the crowd especially some at the front right of the stage seemed to have love and adoration in their eyes. There was one fella who was quite a big man with a wispy beard and curly hair that was stood for a good 5 minutes just staring at Mr Gedge with love in his eyes…put a big smile on my face.
It didn’t matter how well they played Saturnalia though…it was songs like ‘Corduroy’, ’Kennedy’ and ‘Brassneck’ that got the crowd into a frenzy…so much in fact that there was a bit of old skool mosh pit action…plus one stage diver…not seen one of those for 20 years or maybe more.
All in all it was a special night and one of those intimate musical experiences that don’t come along too often.
