| Artist | cleopatrick |
| Venue | The Wardrobe, Leeds |
| Date | 7 March 2022 |
| Opener | NO SWEAT |
| Closer | 505 (Arctic Monkeys cover) |
| Highlight | FAMILY VAN |
| Undertone rating | 3/5 |
A muddled set list failed to make the most of the band’s hardest-hitting tracks, but cleopatrick still summoned plenty of pandemonium for a Leeds crowd quite happy to render social distancing well and truly a thing of the past.
Garforth train station is not a pleasant place to be on a cold Monday night. Having driven straight there after a long day of work, I arrived shivering in the thin fleece that I’d be tearing off in the intense heat of the night to come. I was completely alone, save for the roaring Newcastle to Blackpool trains that blasted through the station with little warning every few minutes. I paced up and down the platform, listening to the crunch of newly-laid grit beneath my feet and dreaming of the tantalisingly locked glass waiting room and its potential for an adjacent toilet. The dot matrices above me displayed nothing but a questionable explanation that the communications systems were undergoing ‘improvements’. Expecting a 20 minute wait for my train, I returned to the warmth of my car, despite the shadowy figure that seemed to be watching me from a few parking bays away.
Luckily, a delay of five minutes for the train was about as bad as the subsequent journey into Leeds got. It was perhaps an aptly uncomfortable introduction for a rock duo unwilling and perhaps unable to write a sweet, gentle love song. Instead, Luke Gruntz and Ian Fraser charge their songs with unadulterated rage, with choruses landing like missiles and vocals akin to a teenager telling their parents to mind their own business. They’re also an example of the rock revolution brought on by the relatively recent innovation of high-quality octave pedals which give Gruntz the ability to play electric guitar and bass all at once. The result is songs that rely on riffs much more than chords, lending them gut-punching immediacy and a whole new layer of catchiness. Of course, Brighton duo Royal Blood did it first and best, but a trip to Leeds Arena when they come to town next month doesn’t come cheap. Besides, music this raw and dirty is best served in grassroots venues like The Wardrobe, an establishment beloved by the Leeds locals almost to the extent of Brudenell Social Club.
A late start and the freezing, lonely half-hour at Garforth saw me complete my nervy walk across town to the Wardrobe at 8:45pm, just 15 minutes before the lads took to the stage. The place was thronging, but the crowd just about separated enough for me to squeeze into a half-decent slot towards the side of the venue. The raised horseshoe I was standing on surrounded the ‘pit’, mostly full of pumped up youths more than ready to get drenched in sweat. Like a nervous swimmer sitting by the pool, I decided to begin the night as an observer of the inevitable anarchy, although my proximity to the staircase leading down into the pit was handy. After a torrent of guitar distortion, NO SWEAT opened the night, followed by VICTORIA PARK and THE DRAKE, none of which quite managed to ignite the crowd beneath me. Gruntz seemed to notice this, and tried his best to get everyone into the spirit of things, throwing up his arms to the crowd in what could have been genuine frustration and even having a crack at crowd surfing on THE DRAKE. Perhaps I had expected too much of the moshers, but in the slightly uneasy opening 10 minutes of the show, it felt as if cleopatrick – and their Leeds supporters – had more to give.
Then GOOD GRIEF arrived, and things started to slot into place. Whilst Gruntz may lack the technical dexterity of Royal Blood’s Mike Kerr, GOOD GRIEF is cleopatrick’s blunt-edged fury at its most impactful. A song that is really just one simplistic but well-milked bass riff, GOOD GRIEF was the spark the gig needed. The wall of sound produced by Gruntz’s guitar was immense, and the crowd responded suitably. Momentary respite in the verses were handy pauses for the moshers to create their own empty circles to rush into once that killer bassline returned. Any remaining beers were sprayed into the air as if England had just scored, and every so often an ecstatic reveller was pushed up onto the crowd by dozens of hands around them before being propelled to the front or swallowed back up by the mob. Having not witnessed such chaotic and absurd scenes since the pandemic, it was a delight to watch.
Perhaps struggling to muster the stage presence of the traditional four-piece rock band, cleopatrick never quite maintained their momentum. Downtempo WHY JULY was a considerate follow-up, allowing the crowd to literally get their breath back, but the big payoff that the track had led up to was brief and underwhelming. Punky daphne did it was good fun, but lacked the anthemic hook that the pumped-up rabble was yearning for. Even so, the energy of the pit was steadily increasing, and my temptation to join them was building song by song. It looked intimidating from where I was standing but, having witnessed the first third of the gig, I reminded myself that the reason I had made the painstaking journey to Leeds on a Monday night was to have an experience no jazz or pop gig could provide. After all, what was the point of showing up to a heavy rock gig if I couldn’t brag about my bruises the day after? In between songs, I awkwardly and apologetically pushed my way down the busy staircase and chose my moment to dive into the hurricane of bodies, aware that once I was in the thick of it it would be difficult to leave.
I had chosen a good moment to join the chaos; when snarling, smartly-written banger FAMILY VAN kicked into gear just a few songs later I was quite literally swept away in the excitement of those around me. I too, of course, was just as enthusiastic; FAMILY VAN is a titanic rock song, complete with an ear-piercingly loud chorus. The remarkable bridge was only an excuse for cleopatrick to make their music even louder, even more intense, even more viscerally thrilling. Gruntz’s belted lyric “I know you’re only fucking with me because I’m alone” evoked an injured animal ready to counterattack. A heady mix of euphoria and rage dominated the crowd, each of us losing ourselves in a sort of primal mania.
I found myself pushed to the side of the mosh pit (bizarrely very close to where I’d began the night) and took a breather whilst the pumped-up crowd attempted to sing the guitar screeches of the depths. I was already drenched in sweat – both my own and of those around me – and wary that I’d be very thirsty before long. Fan favourite hometown built patiently, although the journey to each chorus felt convoluted thanks to a few tempo and groove changes. The all-too-brief choruses were nonetheless some of the duo’s most fiery material. A large mosh circle halfway through was my ticket to the front. I took it, mixing with the most hardcore fans and finding myself miraculously just one row back from the front once the dust had settled. It was nice to discover that arriving late at rock gigs isn’t an issue – if you have the confidence to mix with the moshers you can travel almost to wherever you please mid-song and no one bats an eyelid.
youth was an unexpected but popular and ultimately effective choice of closer. “All my friends are wasted,” we screamed with what voices we had left. At one point a Wardrobe crew member took it upon himself to stand at the front of stage and dispense of an entire water bottle on us. In any other context it would have been a rude, unsolicited distraction during one of the band’s best songs. For a gig as raucous (and hot) as this one, it was just good old fashioned fun that served to intensify the head banging around me.
Having finished their set promptly at 10pm, I didn’t expect an encore despite chants of “one more song!” interspersed with the “Yarrrksherrrr!” chant that seems a staple feature of just about every Leeds gig I go to. Besides, the band had more or less exhausted their relatively slim discography over the course of the night. Then Luke Gruntz returned to the stage – alongside a handful of friends and crew members, including a new bassist and guitarist – and mumbled into the mic “we don’t usually do this but… when in Yorkshire…”. The only question left on everyone’s minds was exactly what Arctic Monkeys crowd pleaser would he roll out? 505 was a slightly odd choice (surely I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor would have torn the roof off the place), but the fans around me well and truly lapped it up, belting out every last word of Alex Turner’s understated anthem. It was a light-hearted finish that had the Leeds concert-goers practically skipping home minutes later, giddy in the realisation that their regular chant had actually amounted to something.
The evening could have done with more with 505’s sense of fun. Gruntz and Fraser are such experts at aggressive bangers that any other musical mood was largely rejected, and attempts at softness (like the boring 2008) failed to engage with the recuperating audience who were busy accepting vital cups of chilled water from the stewards at the front or figuring out where on earth their friends had ended up.
That said, I got what I came for in the end. I staggered out onto Saint Peter’s Square smelly, slightly bruised and wholly invigorated. As a band to herald my return to the mosh pit, Gruntz and Fraser could hardly have been a better fit, and my tiring speedwalk back to the station was spent processing what I had just got myself into, all by myself. Garforth station was still eerily empty when I returned, although this time the chilly temperatures were refreshing rather than uncomfortable. Another solo adventure was complete, and I was about to sleep very, very well.
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