The second best thing to come out of Bradford
Embrace did two outdoor gigs in Leeds' Millennium Square this weekend, Saturday and Sunday nights. Corinna had bought tickets for the Sunday one for my birthday a while back and we had such a great time.
The doors were opening at 4:30pm which we thought was a bit odd for something that finishes at 11pm? Anyway, we didn't want to get stuck at the back so we got there for 5:30 ish. And even though it said no alcohol or food would be allowed in, we sneaked in some apples and chocolate digestives... How rock'n'roll!
It turns out the "and special guests" on the ticket meant four supporting bands, not one as I expected! Hence why it started so early. And they were four different bands for both days too, so you can see why some people were calling it a mini-festival...
The weekend was named after one of Embrace's songs, A Glorious Day, and it turned out to be prophesy. The weather was superb, sunny and warm. When we arrived it was a lazy Sunday afternoon, mellow like being on holiday, with people lying around soaking in the sun and the atmosphere. We got some ice creams and found a nice spot for the afternoon. (It did get a little chilly in the evening, but that just goes out of your mind when Embrace comes on.)
The Saturday gig had sold out really quickly so they added another day, but that was only announced in Feb. I don't know if there were less people at the Sunday gig because of that, but it certainly didn't feel cramped at all. Maybe that's because it was outside. Apparently the square can accommodate up to 7k people but there were 6k at these gigs.
Mind you, it's a great venue for a gig. We thought it would be odd being just a square in town, surrounded by buildings. But it worked really well. And there's a natural slant down to the corner where they put the stage. The council spent £12m creating the square but I'm not sure where that went. It just seems to be a big pavemented area. There's a rumour that it's just a cover for an underground nuclear bunker, which is funny because on the square's website it says "Much of what makes Millennium Square special is a hidden away underground." He he...
The pic above was taken by the
Millennium Square webcam on Sunday afternoon before the doors opened. You can see the stage/sound rig and the lovely weather. We were sat towards the bottom right of the picture for the afternoon, then we moved up to the stage for Embrace's set. Not right at the front, but only maybe 10 metres back.
I found that webcam just before we left. It updates every 5 minutes so I thought it would be cool to capture the images for the whole evening while we were there. But I didn't have the time or the tools at hand to write something, so I rang Matt and he wrote something quickly to do it. When I checked my email on Monday, not only had he captured the images but he'd compiled them into a movie and it looks brilliant! Thanks Matt!
Click here to watch the gig yourself! (Well, a 5 second version of it anyway...) Matt pointed out the difference between the 10:55 and 11pm pics. It went from packed full to completely empty. Funny. I'm glad I discovered the webcam before the gig rather than after anyway!
I only recognised the name of one of the support bands, The Subways, and they played on Saturday anyway. (At least I think I recognised it but then I'm not really up on my support bands.) On Sunday we must have missed the first one, Infrasound. But the bands generally get better as the day gets later so I don't think we missed much. We arrived part way through The Engineers' set. Their songs generally started well but tended to turn into just loud noise towards the end. He he. Next were Longview and then Thirteen Senses. I was so impressed with those two that I went out and bought their albums straightaway! They were really good live anyway.
In between songs the Longview lead singer made some comment about the weather and said "thank the Lord". I didn't think anything of it but it did sound sincere at the time. I found out as I was ordering their album that they're Christians! Cool...
After a long wait Chris Moyles of all people came on to introduce the band, funny guy.
Then Embrace came on. I had a great view, but Corinna had to stand on my toes a few times. Especially when we got a nutter in front of us who was jumping so hard stuff was falling out of his pockets... :) The first thing you notice about Embrace is that the lead singer, Danny, is so unbelievably happy!? Not how I imagined. He really was grinning ear-to-ear for the whole night! From
their website:
Never mind two or three years - even just nine months ago no one would have believed it possible. People would have laughed in your face. In fact, people probably did. So it's understandable that, come the end of Sunday's set, Embrace are five men grinning from ear-to-ear like all their dreams have come true at once ... Because it would be unbelievable, if it wasn't true.
Danny said something along those lines himself too. I'm not sure why it's so unbelievable. Maybe I missed something. They were great back in '98 but they did kinda disappear for a while. I was surprised when he said they've been working on their fifth album!? I missed one completely - never even heard of it! Thankfully most of their songs on Sunday came from the first and fourth albums though (The Good Will Out and Out of Nothing) which are superb. Classics.
They dedicated Gravity to its writer, Coldplay's Chris Martin. Apparently they have been good friends since Coldplay supported Embrace in 2000! I didn't even know the song wasn't written by Embrace. But apparently Martin felt it sounded more like an Embrace song than a Coldplay one so he gave it to them, nice! But there was more gratitude in the dedication than just for a song, It sounded like Coldplay must have somehow helped get them back on track a year ago or something.
"Thank you for making this the best night of my life," beamed Danny, a victim of many other fantastic nights recently, but none quite like this. Leeds city centre was left reverberating to a cacophonous version of Out Of Nothing and a triumphal rendition of The Good Will Out, our ears hinging all the way home.
I was really happy they did That's All Changed Forever as well. That's my favourite song from the first album, but they haven't done it live for 5 years I think he said it was, so Corinna chose the right day!
It really was a brilliant night though. Embrace were superb! Really enjoyed it. It's one of those "you had to be there" things obviously. I think I got more out of it than Corinna as she only knew one or two songs beforehand, but she was singing away once she picked them up. And she seemed to really enjoy it too. I think she's even been converted to the way of the Indie - I caught her playing some Embrace yesterday... :)
Here's a few pics anyway:
Imogen Heap 
