A former petrol station – the event space is located in what was the fuel storage tank – Hyde Park Book Club feels more relaxed than many other venues in Leeds. It’s Saturday night and in the back to back terraces which hem it in from all sides the competing bass noises tell you it’s also party time, but with the DJ indoors playing eighties disco crate diggers like Clio’s Faces, HPBC still feels as welcoming as anywhere else in the city.
Downstairs it’s not quite so relaxed: post-punk agit-proppers Italia ’90 are in town and if their coruscating debut album Living Human Treasure is anything to go buy, faces are just as likely to be very got into. They’re supported by Southampton’s Happy2000, a chaotically fun punk/noise quintet who taking the hint are busy partying too, musically though like it’s 1999.
The headliners by comparison are more imposing, with singer Les Miserable kitted out in vintage skinhead gear, although bass player Bobby Portrait is – courageously given that we’re in the North – sporting a beret. Mutual friends since adolescence and having formed years ago, their more recent material has incorporated elements as diverse as jazz and gothic rock, but tonight’s show is much more straightly played, letting the songs speak for themselves.
Mostly those speaking are the standout takes from Living Human Treasure, particularly the likes of Leisure Activities, Harmony and an intense, room-stopping version of Magdalene. There is an occasional departure into older material – the most notable being Stroke City, a visceral diatribe on the Bloody Sunday murders – but the crowd are finally encouraged to get into their groove with the singalonga anti-capitalism of New Factory. Upstairs and across the streets of redbricks, afterwards the beat goes on.
The Voice Of Unreason 