OnRoundhay is the newborn northern sibling of the OnBlackheath festival which has been running since 2014. The festival site sits in a natural bowl in Roundhay Park which gives very good views of the enormous music stage and two top quality video screens from wherever you are in the main arena. The tie in with John Lewis means that there's a cookery demonstration tent and a selection of fine festival foods. There's also a Penguin storytelling area , a mini sports day, and giant, costumed characters (Peter Rabbit and Spot The Dog for the kiddies, and The Clangers for grown-up kiddies with longer memories) walking around for selfies and high fives.
Promoter Harvey Goldsmith is the compère for the day and he introduces Actor, who are a discovery of BBC Introducing West Yorkshire. Actor are a three-piece based in Leeds who produce a set of epic power pop tunes in a Bat for Lashes style driven along by Louisa Osborn's vocals which are powerful and striking. Standout tracks are 'Power' and 'Baby Cries'.
Another local band The Haggis Horns are next .They play mainly instrumentals of funky tunes with surprise, surprise a killer horn section. Their sound bursts from the PA and gets the partisan crowd down the front dancing. I suspect they would be at their best in a small, sweaty venue with everyone up on the tables and dancing, but to the uninitiated each track sounds very similar and the appeal is lost after a while in the wide open spaces outdoors.
Harvey's back on stage to introduce “ one of the hottest bands around .. Wolf Alice” and having seen Wolf Alice several times in the past couple of years Harvey's not wrong. Their sound is fuller and heavier live than on their debut album 'My Love is Cool '. Highlights include 'You're a Germ', 'Fluffy' and 'Moaning Lisa Smile'. The shortened set of 45 minutes and 13 tracks means there's little chance for audience / band interaction, but that's a minor quibble as their consistently high quality live performance means there's likely to be great things ahead for Wolf Alice.
A band already with a great past, current and likely future is Primal Scream, who understand that they are playing to a festival crowd so select a set list of greatest hits. A couple of minutes of opener 'Moving On Up' ignites long distant memories, causing a stampede of grown-ups into the area in front of the stage. 'Moving on Up' is one of four tracks from 'Screamadelica' in the set which also includes 'Jailbird' and 'Rocks', plus the two best tracks from 'Chaosmosis' the new album. A final anthemic 'Come Together' sends the crowd back to their early twenties and hopefully converts a few of the current teens/ early twenties present in the audience.
The investigatory powers of Sherlock Holmes are not required to deduce from the flowery face paint and band merch being displayed by the audience that tonight's headliners James are the main reason many are here tonight. Tim Booth ,wearing a beanie to protect against the rapidly dropping temperature, welcomes the audience “Good evening , it's a real pleasure to be here”, as the intro to the slow burn of 'Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)'. 'Sit Down' causes the inevitable mass sing-along.
The giant sun disc/ speaker from the front cover of their most recent album 'Girl at the end of the World' hangs over the band and there's six tracks from that album in the set tonight. But there's a steady drip of hits including 'Laid', 'She's a star' and during 'Sometimes' there's a mass audience sing-along to the fade out “Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul”. The encore of 'Say Something ' ends in band bows and farewells to close this fine day.
The varied music selection, interesting food stalls, general good feeling and family atmosphere all blessed by the surprising late Summer Yorkshire sunshine means that the birth of On Roundhay feels like a successful delivery. We hope that the biggest village fête in Yorkshire will return again next year.
Alisdair Whyte
