Underneath the arches on Swinegate near the main train station you would find Leeds Cockpit. It was formerly the Cock of the North pub before opening as a music/club venue in 1994. After a twenty-year spell, it closed in 2014 due to the low number of punters attending club nights, those very club nights subsequently relocating across town to the Key Club.
Luminaries such as Amy Winehouse, White Stripes, and hometown boys the Kaiser Chiefs treaded the boards there and the Fall once played a famous gig were the ever-obstreperous Mark E Smith refused to undertake an encore and sent out the roadies instead to play three more tracks.
There were three venues located inside, with the main room (capacity 500) being the location I have visited twice. The other rooms had capacities of 250 and 125 respectively. It was a grungy atmospheric venue with its industrial type of location by the railway tracks and I liked it a lot and was mournful when I heard it had closed its doors for the last time.
My first visit was on a warm Friday night in May 2003 to see Mogwai. We had a good mulch around a suite of city centre pubs ranging from smooth wine bars to Barnsley Bitter type alehouses, prior to heading over to the venue.
Mogwai produced a stellar set finishing with ‘2 Rights Make 1 Wrong’ and ‘My Father, My King’ and the encore contained a magnificent ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’. We headed back on the Saturday arriving home just in time to watch Southampton narrowly lose the Cup Final to Arsenal.
My second visit was 11 years later within the remit of our first encounter with the Live at Leeds multi-venue event. We made a last-minute decision to attend the shindig so could only obtain a hotel in the suburbs which necessitated a bus ride into town and a taxi ride home. We did forward plan though to ensure we had some emergency crunch creams waiting for us when we landed back at our digs.
The first band we witnessed were Darlia, who despite having a fundamental flaw of being from Blackpool were rather enjoyable. They formed in 2013 and despite some considerable press attention and a slot on the NME awards tour they appear to have been on a sabbatical since 2017.
The second act was a four-piece post punk band from Essex called The Bohicas who garnered support slots with Franz Ferdinand but subsequently disbanded in 2016. Looking back now at the listings for the day I have noted that a young Wolf Alice played the venue later that evening, but as there were so many other venues to go and visit, we moved on at that point.
The Escobar in the centre of the city was arguably two separate areas with a Mexican cantina restaurant upstairs, with a dingy bar and live music room upstairs. In March 2013 Gill and I were away for a weekend in Leeds where we stumbled upon this bar and discovered that there were a couple of bands on.
The main band was The Vendettas, an energetic Leeds based three-piece who I would quantify as garage mod revivalists replete with the requisite garb including the traditional parkas. They were supported on the night by 54 Knockout.
