Festival review: Live at Leeds in the Park 2024 at Temple Newsam

There’s something reassuringly preordained about the steadily greying hues of clouds on the horizon across the spring bank holiday weekend; this inexorable harmony between the unofficial three-day kickoff to summer and the untimely arrival of bad weather to put a damp squib on it all.

So it comes to pass that the crowds at Leeds’s Temple Newsam estate cannot outrun their fate – but ultimately, when the heavens do open, it proves to be the final euphoric cog on a glitter-soaked jamboree spilling out across the grounds of the Tudor-Jacobean house.

Live at Leeds in the Park, a dual sister-event of sorts to the original metropolitan multi-venue festival held in the city centre, and to the engorged emo-punk celebration Slam Dunk Festival, which unfolds across the same site a day later, has primarily preserved its original penchant for breaking indie and pop acts onto bigger stages that still powers its initial iteration.

Forty bands across five stages means there is a need to book bigger than years gone by however; for every artist previously unheralded act such as Radio Free Alice on the bill, there’s another who can boast top-ten bonafides like Declan McKenna who can thrill the predominantly millennial glut of punters in attendance.

Birmingham indie rockers The Clause off very little deviation from the traditional four-man band approach, with a songcraft that seems calibrated to please FIFA soundtrack aficionados before anything else. But they play their music with such thrillingly organic swagger that they prove to be an early highlight amid the smaller stages, while fellow Midlanders and rising stars Overpass see a similarly boisterous crowd spilling far out of the gazebo-style Dork HypeStage! where they peddle their hooky songs in an early afternoon slot.

There’s a surfeit of energy for Irish garage-punks Sprints too, though singer and guitarist Karla Chubb is forced to contend with sound issues throughout their short, spiky set. They are not on the level of problems suffered by a local star in Corrine Bailey Rae however; the Leeds-born singer, here in a special position to promote last year’s acclaimed garage-jazz fusion record Black Rainbows, is beset by problems across her microphone and other instruments, though she gamely battles on for as long as she can on the Cockpit Main Stage, named for the sadly departed Leeds venue considered a national institution.

Alternative singer Baby Queen fares better, with the Durban-born, London-based performer treating fans to a lively run through songs from her debut album Quarter Life Crisis.

Rain is yet to truly materialise between the odd dusting of drizzle, and it holds off long enough for Melanie C to prove one of the surprise highlights of the day. The ex-Spice Girl, tracksuited and booted for full nostalgia, runs her set like a musical aerobics class, bounding across the stage from end-to-end and hoisting several thousand arms in unison for the silky pop groove of Never Be the Same Again.

Despite the competition, White Lies prove as good as a match at the same time under the Clash Big Top, rifling through a back catalogue that blends post-punk propulsion with new wave flourishes to dazzling effect. They are followed by Baltimore synth-cult icons Future Islands, who make the most of a truncated set due to running delays; though they lean heavily on new record People Who Aren’t There Anymore, they still pack a punch, capped by a triumphant howl through Seasons (Waiting On You).

The rain that has threatened finally arrives in earnest as The Cribs take to the stage, swelling the crowd numbers for the homegrown heroes in only their second – and apparently final – show of the year. The Wakefield indie stalwarts have been a safe fixture at West Yorkshire festivals for a reason; even without the cultural impact of an enduring radio hit, their songs, from the thrilling Glitters Like Gold through shrewd singalong Cheat On Me, all feel like fan favourites to even the neutral listener, and it takes them two extra songs for their audience to even allow them to leave.

It falls to headliners The Kooks to battle the elements for the finale then, but with the weather coming down in droves, it is a battle they appear poised to lose. Frontman Luke Pritchard seems almost sunnily determined to ignore the mounting monsoon conditions and plough on without interruption – and ultimately, with festival staples such as She Moves In Her Own Way and Ooh La in their back pocket, the Brighton band ultimately prevail, with fans dancing atop rain-slicked wheelie bins as they rattle through the night. At last, the weather slows to a steady drip for closer Naive; half-an-hour later, as the crowds wander towards Selby Road, its refrain still echoes through the night.