Music preview: The Duke Spirit at Live At Leeds

Over the past decade, Live at Leeds has become one of Yorkshire's premier music events. Without fail, each spring sees thousands of music lovers converge on the city to see as many bands as possible over the one­day event, which is spread across venues throughout Leeds, ranging from small clubs to sizeable spaces.
The Duke SpiritThe Duke Spirit
The Duke Spirit

This year’s event promises to be particularly spectacular as Live at Leeds celebrates its 10th anniversary, and over the coming weeks, you can look forward to a showcase of several not to be missed acts, beginning this week with The Duke Spirit.

Likened to rock giants such as The Jesus and Mary Chain and the Patti Smith Group, Live at Leeds veterans may remember having seen this band play the festival in years gone by. Since 2005, they have released four critically acclaimed albums and toured the UK from top to bottom.

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Over the past decade, this London based rock band have carved out a reputation for being anything but dull when it comes to playing live. In fact, their lead singer Leila Moss has fond memories of playing Live at Leeds in previous years, as well as seeing some of her favourite acts at the festival: “I was massively impressed ­ the city was buzzing, big venues and people everywhere. I went to see Anna Calvi play once we had finished and had a brilliant night.”

The Duke Spirit have a busy year ahead of them, promoting their latest studio album, Kin. Moss says that the recording process for each album has had a different flavour, but Kin, their fourth record, has definitely been the easiest to record. “It was fun with album one, then enlightening and wondrous in the desert for album two, then interesting­ but ­difficult number three. Now I would say the process has recalibrated itself as album four was a total pleasure to record.

“It has a simplicity in there which is hard to describe. It wasn’t written as if we were ‘writing an album’. It came because it flowed, it surfaced. No pushing and shoving, just a response to the huge events happening around us ­ births and deaths and all the love in between.”

Taking in Live at Leeds as part of their UK tour, The Duke Spirit will be playing at Leeds Beckett University’s Student Union, and Leila says that they are geared up to show the festival goers a good time. “We have some minor muscular injuries but we are brimming with excitement.”

The Duke Spirit play at Live At Leeds on Saturday April 30. For details on the festival visit http://liveatleeds.com/

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