Leeds Venues 17 to 19

I will now continue the tale of my attendance at the Live at Leeds event in 2021 commencing just after the epic walk from the Brudenhall Social Club back into the city centre. After refuelling with some tea, we headed next to Leeds Oporto on Call Lane, situated next to the Corn Exchange. I had missed narrowly a sighting of a band on my previous visit to the festival in 2014 so was obviously eager to tick this venue off the list.

Leeds Oporto Bar. Image Credit designmynight.com

Oporto opened in the late 1990’s and is owned by the Leeds bar-group Akito and stages DJ nights and serves vegan snacks in their pop-up area called Knaves Kitchen. They also have regular live music in their 120-capacity gig room attached to the bar. It had a chilled atmosphere and the band on stage at the point of our visit was Walt Disco. The band are a six-piece from Scotland and incorporated a clash of styles crossing from post-punk to glam rock and they were a fun act to watch.  

The next place to visit further down Call Street was the Leeds Northern Guitars Café Bar. The venue opened as a shop in 1989 trading collector and previously owned guitars. They decided to expand to a café in 2017 and at that stage began to also stock dirty beer and set up a welcoming beer garden! The place had a lovely, homely vibe with the walls adorned with more guitars, band posters and local artwork. They also entrepreneurially stock strings and leads for any immediate resolution of any live issues on stage.   

Leeds Northern Guitars Cafe Bar. Image Credit northernguitars.co.uk

They have also championed live music with a small stage by the door with a slant on providing support and a much-required platform for local musicians to learn and hone their craft. God knows we need to support these establishments as they provide such a valuable service as all musicians need to have the opportunity to start their live journey somewhere, so why not here?

We purchased a fine ale and managed to purloin some much-needed seats in the busy bar, and we saw a young singer songwriter from Hackney called Mychelle who had just released her debut single ‘The Way’ with an accompanying video filmed on Hackney Downs. She had a soothing soulful voice and was in synch with the surroundings of the venue she was performing in.

Leeds Key Club self-proclaims itself as the number one venue for rock and alternative music in the city. In 2001, the old Leeds Cockpit venue set up the Slam Dunk Leeds club night to cater for the niche sound of pop-punk and emo. The idea evolved into shows and further club nights before leading to the conception of the Slam Dunk festival. When the Cockpit sadly closed its doors for the final time, the club night was continued on a Tuesday night at the Key Club. They have also indie nights on a Thursday and rock nights on a Saturday.

Leeds Key Club. Image Credit roadielive.co.uk

They also stage regular live music in the 300-capacity room and the venue is in a downstairs area. I would normally welcome this as a live setting, but it was the busiest venue of the day and was rather airless and we were still in the Covid period, so we only attended briefly.

The act on stage was Bob Vylan who were a noisy rap crossover duo from London. They had initially formed in 2017 and in a Ramones style naming move they comprised of singer/guitarist Bobby Vylan and drummer Bobbie Vylan!