The Awakening, Headingley Stadium, review: a tubthumping start to Leeds’s Year of Culture
There were moments, early in this launch show for the Leeds 2023 Year of Culture programme, when one feared that the event would struggle to achieve lift off. For a start, the much-vaunted ballot for 15,000 tickets (in which local people from throughout the city’s communities were invited to submit examples of their own artistic creativity) had led to Headingley Stadium being notably undersubscribed.
With the rain falling on the brave souls who had opted for standing tickets on the hallowed Headingley turf, it was down to guest hosts Gabby Logan (the BBC sports presenter who was born in Leeds) and Sanchez Payne (the footballer-turned-BBC Radio Leeds presenter) to help the crowd to defy the inclement weather. Defiance, however, could be the watchword of Leeds 2023.
Brexit scuppered the Yorkshire city’s efforts to become European Capital of Culture for 2023. Securing the title would, it was hoped, prove to be as regenerative for Leeds as it had been for Glasgow in 1990 and Liverpool in 2008.
The city’s self-declared Year of Culture is a defiant response to disappointment. Little surprise, then, that its opening show should rise, Phoenix-like, from what were less than auspicious circumstances.
Logan and Payne were joined on-stage by local heroes Kadeena Cox OBE (the gold medal winning paralympian) and Jamie Jones-Buchanan MBE (player-turned-coach with the Leeds Rhinos rugby league team). The sports personalities were genuinely, and infectiously, enthusiastic about the 2023 programme’s stated objectives of raising the profile of Leeds and achieving maximum inclusion in its cultural life.
If the theme of defiant optimism had not already been thoroughly established, it was certainly hammered home by the appearance of the chorus of Opera North with Dunstan Bruce of Chumbawamba fame. Together, Bruce (a gloriously spritely 62-year-old) and the opera singers performed an excellent version of the erstwhile anarcho-pop group’s 1997 hit Tubthumping (with its memorable chorus: “I get knocked down, but I get up again/You’re never gonna keep me down”).
So appropriate were the lyrics, indeed, that one couldn’t help but reflect that it might not be too late to make the song the official anthem of Leeds 2023.
The varied set that followed – including West Indian carnival, and performances by acclaimed local rap star Graft, rapper and R&B artist Ntantu, leading tabla player Inder Goldfinger, and singer-songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae – put a strong emphasis on the richness and diversity of Leeds’ culture. A series of short videos (including a septuagenarian, male burlesque performer) highlighted the Year of Culture’s inclusivity agenda.
The theme of defiance was back again when young TV presenter George Webster (who has Down’s syndrome) appeared alongside his father to offer a motivational speech. Add to that what the concert organisers believe to be Britain’s youngest rock band (the 10-year-olds of Solar Jets), and there was no question that the show had achieved its aim of being inclusive.
Nor was the city’s literary tradition forgotten. An innovative highlight of the show was poet laureate Simon Armitage performing his specially written poem Awakening, set to music by the band LYR.
Urging the city to “wake up” because “you have gold in your veins”, Armitage’s heartfelt verse deserves to run like a rich thread through the 2023 events.
For further information on the Leeds 2023 programme, visit: leeds2023.co.uk
