Back to Back Festival 2025

Brudenell Social Club

Featuring: Lobby, Pop Vulture, Clara Mann, Divorce Finance, Pencil, Ex Agent, Glasshouse Red Spider Mite, Speedway Star, The Luca and CRIG

Frenetic in the best of ways, compounded upon by the split across the Main and Community Rooms, the half-hour blasts of energy interceded with short breaths of air lent themselves to impactful snapshots of the Leeds music scene, and the up-and-coming musical talents of the UK as a whole. 

The afternoon started with the atmospheric outfit Glasshouse Red Spidermite whose world-building audio snippets and aethereal guitar rhythms set an outstanding precedent for the rest of the acts to follow. 

First to perform in the Main Room was CRIG. Full of DIY eccentricity and apparent underlying creative brilliance, CRIG’s first gig under the moniker felt like their hundredth, serving powerful and witty tunes that would sound at home on any early Mountain Goats release.

Returning to the community room, Ex Agent delivered a swaggering, boastful and surprisingly vulnerable piece of musical art. Duelling saxophones and primal screams punctuated a performance that stood for itself and was all the more memorable for it. 

In contrast to this, Luca burst onto the stage with an effortless charisma and a sound that pulls together the catchy synths and funky rhythms of the 80s New Wave pop, with vocal honesty and acoustic guitars that harkened to The Lighthouse Family in all the right ways. 

Silence would define the next act as the beautiful, enchanting tone of Clara Mann’s solo acoustic folk awed a usually raucous crowd into a quiet respect, only broken by thunderous applause after each open, honest and raw song. 

From the moment they stepped on stage with a resonator guitar, Speedway Star delivered upon the inferred promise of an Americana-laced set, complete with slide guitar sections that created an atmosphere only matched by MJ Lenderman’s appearance at the same venue mere months prior. 

Pencil are what arise from taking the finest parts of Radiohead's dreamlike vocals, and the best parts of the first half of XTC’s classic Skylarking, and placing them in the hands of a group of overwhelmingly talented musicians to play with. 

Speaking of XTC, Divorce Finance are the result of extracting one of their titular generals and/or majors, strapping them in a chair Clockwork Orange style, force-feeding them a steady stream of the last 40 years of world news and letting them loose on stage with a microphone. And my god, is it glorious. 

Lobby followed this outrageous energy with a slower, more considered set of indie tunes. The trio expressed a sense of wistfulness that pacified those in attendance into a sense of shared wonder at what emotion would be brought up next. 

To round off the night, Pop Vulture took to the main stage. Loud, brash and bold, the group unleashed waves of angry post-punk with breaks of intense, awe-inspiring feedback that hit the crowd like the brilliant, clean pain of having a nerve struck at the dentist, only for it to give way to another great song.

Words and pictures by Natasha Dobson (@n_j_dphotography)

First photo: Pop Vulture. 

Second photo: Ex Agent.