Leeds Festival Review: Kendrick Lamar + The Libertines

It was a very sunny and hot first day on Friday at Leeds Festival 2015. At 20:30, the crowd gathered around the main stage as Kendrick was due to come on stage, the intro to ‘Money Trees’ begins to play from the 2012 album ‘good Kid, m.A.A.d city’. Live band at the ready, the drums kicked in and Kendrick got the crowd going and went straight into ‘Backseat Freestyle’ causing a roar in the crowd. Continuing on to play ‘Swimming Pools (Drank)’ and ‘Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe’ which all got a great reaction from an overall quiet crowd, despite the main stage being the busiest it had been since Jamie T played that day. When it came to ‘m.A.A.d city’ Kendrick was barely 30 seconds in when he cut it “Stop stop stop stop stop…” causing confusion amongst the crowd, as he continued “For some reason, I liked how that felt out there, this might be the live-ist motherfucking crowd that I had on this tour so far” followed by cheers, you could tell that when they started playing again it would be mayhem. “I’m gonna run this shit back, and when it drops again… make the circles as big as possible, I think you know whats about to happen”. Ending with the live band turning the track round into rock instrumental. As the sun began to set, Kendrick insisted on everybody getting their lighters and torches on their phones out to a slower track. Kendrick ended the set with ‘King Kunta’ from his latest album ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’ and ‘A.D.H.D’ from ‘Section 80’.

The Libertines were up next as main headliners of day 1 at Leeds Festival. Entering the stage to Vera Lynn’s iconic song ‘We’ll Meet Again’, Pete and Carl donned long black leather coats and opened the set with ‘Horrorshow’. Followed by ‘Vertigo’, ‘ The Delaney’ and ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’ the band were as good as ever.

It was evident that Pete was doing well since attending rehab in Thailand and coming clean off drugs. Midway through the set, the band played an emotional ‘You’re My Waterloo’, an unreleased track due to be on the new album ‘Anthems For Doomed Youth’. The Libertines played a few new songs from their upcoming album, such as ‘Gunga Din’ and ‘Anthem For Doomed Youth’. The band left the stage and re-entered for the final five songs, including new track ‘Barbarians’, ‘Up The Bracket’ and ‘I Get Along’. Having not headlined R&L festival since 2010, there was a lot to expect from the band since they reunited. The romance was oozing from their songs, it was like the good old days. The set closed with ‘What A Waster’ and ‘Don’t Look Back Into The Sun’, the perfect end to a perfect comeback show at Leeds. Pete, Carl, Gary and John gathered at the end to bow in front of the thousands who came out to watch.