Leeds Festival 2022 Friday Review

By Jimmy Tins

Cider, check. Lager, check. Vodka, check. “Down it! Down it! Down it!” And that was the first 30 seconds of Bad Boy Chiller Crew. If you didn’t know the score beforehand, Bad Boy Chiller Crew left us in no doubt where Saturday was heading. This is a party festival now, and that’s the way this huge, young Leeds crowd like it.

MoshMag started the day watching the K’s excellent opening set. The band were tight, the tunes were great fun and the lads were charming. You can read our review here https://moshmag.co.uk/festivals/leeds-festival-2022-the-ks/

If the K’s offered us a set of upbeat tunes in the Yorkshire sunshine, Daisy Brain took us down a very different path. The moody darkness of Festival Republic Stage was the perfect setting for the slice of early 90s East Coast Grunge Daisy Brain served up.

Ashnikko brought her own brand of empowering eccentricity to the BBC Radio 1 Dance Tent mid-afternoon. As an act she’s not exactly easy to define, is she hip-hop, is she dance. She’s great fun regardless.

Some bands just sound like a festival band. I challenge you to listen to the DMA’s, in the bleakest of bleak midwinter days and not be mentally transported to a sun soaked festival field. The 10 song set from Australia’s finest didn’t disappoint.

In other news, Run the Jewels declared themselves the greatest rap group in the motherfucking world and to be fair, they may have a point. The beauty of RTJ is they don’t seem to be taking themselves too seriously, they’re having a whale of the time and they the crowd with them.

The crowd responded in kind, prompting El-P reminding the crowd to look out for one another “if someone falls down pick them up…and if you didn’t come with that girl in front of you keep your hands to yourself”.

Hear hear. Moshmag whole heartedly support that sentiment and we’re pleased to see RandL taking it seriously signing up to the Enough campaign. https://www.leedsfestival.com/news/enough-campaign/

As the afternoon sun slid behind the clouds the temperatures dropped and Bastille were charged with keeping Leeds bouncing. You know what you’re getting with Bastille, they’re masters of their craft now and returned a finely tuned performance. As we write this, Halsey is literally lighting up Main Stage West and with the 1975 to come later we can definitely mark Friday down as a success.

See our full Friday Gallery Below.