Gig review: Rocket + Ain’t at Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

The last time Rocket were in Yorkshire, they were basking in the blazing summer sun of The Piece Hall, warming up the crowd on Smashing Pumpkins’ 2025 tour. Their laid-back Californian rock felt tailor made for that golden evening, guitars ringing out over sandstone and open sky.

Tonight could hardly be more different: a dark and dingy Wednesday, drizzle on the pavements and the glow of LS6’s takeaways replacing that halo of sunlight. It’s the perfect test of whether their easy-going charm and widescreen road-movie sound can survive being squeezed into a much, much smaller space.

Support comes from London’s Ain’t, a band who already feel like familiar faces. Last time we caught them it was at The Attic with Thus Love, where their wiry post punk and shoe-gazy edges slotted perfectly into a rising bands bill.

Here, in the Brudenell’s main room, they sound bigger and bolder, their choruses reaching the back with ease. As an opener for Rocket they are a good fit; tuneful but gritty, melodic yet still rough enough around the edges to keep things interesting.

Rocket have been busy since that Piece Hall appearance, releasing second album R Is for Rocket to a warm critical response and respectable BBC 6 Music rotation for its run of singles.

Tonight the record gets the full front to back treatment in all but name, with only three survivors from their debut making the cut. They stroll onstage to an eager welcome, plug in, and waste no time, tumbling straight into Crossing Fingers, all chiming guitars and nervous forward momentum.

Onstage they look and feel like exactly what they are: a tight knit gang of friends who’ve known each other since childhood. Singer bassist Alithea, who has said she learned bass specifically for this band because she couldn’t picture herself just singing, anchors the songs with a warm, slightly overdriven low end that quietly drives everything forward.

The two guitarists weave around her lines, one handling the glassy melody, the other smearing fuzz and reverb over the top, while the drummer keeps things punchy and unshowy. It’s the sort of unit where no one overplays because the songs do the talking.

Standouts unsurprisingly come from the new singles: Act Like Your Title fizzes with nervous energy, Another Second Chance feels tailor made for festival afternoons, and Wide Awake lands like an instant classic, its chorus blooming as phones go in the air.

From the debut, Take Your Aim is a huge highlight, still one of their best set openers even when tucked late on, while Sugarcoated and Portrait Show offer a reminder of how quickly they’ve levelled up. The fact that the new record can dominate a 12 song set without dragging is a testament to how strong this batch of material is.

The Brudenell’s famously overachieving lighting rig gets a proper workout, stars and colour washes cascading over the back wall as if trying to fake that lost Piece Hall sunset. It’s not quite a replacement for real sunshine, but it suits the mood.

Between songs, Alithea polls the crowd for pie recommendations, sparking a proudly unanimous endorsement of the bar’s offerings, even if no one quite manages to brief the band on the essential mash, mushy peas and gravy combo.

For visitors from California, it’s a crash course in how Yorkshire gig goers fuel themselves through the relentless murk that has been 2026 so far. For everyone else, this brisk, confident set is its own kind of comfort food: a short, sharp blast of melody and volume that sends people back into the rain with spirits noticeably lighter.