Gig review: NME Awards Tour featuring Bloc Party, Drenge, Rat Boy and Bugzy Malone at O2 Academy Leeds

With the venue looking half full, the crowd seem dubious as to whether the night would live up to their expectations but with early set from Manchester rapper, Bugzy Malone the small crowd soon got a lot livelier as he stormed through tracks like ‘Watch Your Mouth’ taken from his recent release Walk With Me.

As the late comers in the crowd arrived it was time for Rat Boy to take to stage to play new track ‘Move’, however he didn’t stay there for very long, jumping down at the first opportunity to see the enthusiastic front row. Once back on stage he continued to play tracks like ‘Sportswear’, and crowd favourites such as ‘Fake ID’ and ‘Sign On’ which all went down well with the growing audience.

After a short wait, Drenge appear on stage with tracks from their debut album and most recent release, Undertow. Playing their trademark loud garage guitar music, while leaping about the stage, they certainly warmed the crowd up for the main act of the evening.

After a relatively quiet night at Leeds O2 Academy due to the crowd being rather thin on the ground, it was left to Bloc Party to bring the party. They took to the stage at 9.40pm and as promised, they delivered an extremely long set, much to the delight of the fans in the audience.

Opening with new track ‘Only He Can Heal Me’ taken from their most recent release Hymns they didn’t forget the old favourites like ‘Banquet’ and ‘This Modern Love’. Leaving for a short encore break the band returned to end their set with ‘Ratchet’.