Gig review: Parquet Courts at This Must Be The Place, Leeds

For those wishing to enjoy a music festival without running the risk of inclement Yorkshire weather, the two-day '˜This Must Be The Place', held jointly at Belgrave and nearby Headrow House, serves as an ideal and guaranteed rain free substitute to Leeds Festival.
Parquet CourtsParquet Courts
Parquet Courts

Expertly curated by local promoters Super Friendz, this year’s line-up featured an international mix of supercool guitar bands; Canadian dream poppers Alvvays, headlining on Saturday, along with prolific New Yorkers Parquet Courts, bringing proceedings to an end on Sunday. Stellar local talent ensured the undercard proved similarly alluring with the ever brilliant Cowtown in attendance, together with supergroups Living Body and Menace Beach.

With all tickets seemingly snapped-up, Belgrave is unsurprisingly rammed for the Brooklyn quartet’s denouement, despite gorging themselves on quality live fare throughout the day, helped also by a few earlier performers choosing to stay and watch. Andrew Savage, Austin Brown, Sean Yeaton and Max Savage duly appear to a warm reception, the drummer resplendent in a Cheap Trick T-shirt.

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Starting with a handful of tracks from the fine ‘Human Performance’, the monotonous yet deceptively catchy opener ‘Dust’ is complemented by plenty of reverb and feedback, co-frontman Austin Brown’s keyboards providing welcome frills around the edges, ahead of the more sombre mood contained within the title track. The small but perfectly formed ‘Outside’ comes next before ‘Paraphrased’, containing echoes of Talking Heads, particularly in Andrew’s vocal. Completing the quintet is the skittish ‘Captive of the Sun’.

Earlier Parquet Courts material appears during the remainder of a somewhat abridged show, curtailed due to illness and perhaps the reason for Austin’s frequent departures between songs. The still excellent ‘Light up Gold’, a sprawling ‘Instant Disassembly’, the short sharp shock ‘Master Of My Craft’ and ‘Borrowed Time’ all hold up well and, despite the obvious disappointment from the earlier finish, I’ve seen more than enough to head straight for their most recent material. Get well soon!

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