6 bands our founder Kevin Lawson is excited to watch at Leeds Festival 2014

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A couple of days ago I found out that I’ll be heading to Leeds festival as a photographer which is truly excellent news. As a former resident of Reading, I’m always interested as to how it’s sister festival does things. The news has sent me into a frenzy of looking through the lineup and finding some bands – new and old – that I’d be excited to watch/photograph. So here is a little list of the bands I’m hoping won’t be crap when I watch them over the next four days.

CHVRCHES

I have probably sung the morose chorus of We Sink (“I’ll be a thorn in your side, until you die”) more times over the last year than any other song (with the exception of Power by Kanye West). So it would be a little churlish not to go Lauren and her lads play the catchy number live on the NME/BBC Radio 1 Stage.

VAMPIRE WEEKEND

Three albums in, Erza Koenig and his cohorts from NYC have somehow managed to push themselves to the cusp of being the biggest band in the world without losing one shred of critical credibility, making them a must watch at this years festival. Seeing as the last time I saw them play was in 2009 I’m excited to heartily singing along to Oxford Comma, A-Punk, White Sky, Diane Young, well basically everything they’ve ever released!

THE PAINS OF BEING PURE OF HEART

My close friends will know that despite my intimidating beard and hate filled eyes, I’m actually a massive sap who loves nothing more than a bit of indie-pop full of Emo lyrics and so their are a whole bunch of bands that came to light between 2006 and 2009 that hit my musical sweet spot. One such group were  TPOPOH whose self-titled debut album is amongst my all-time favourite records, so although the subsequent records haven’t really done as much for me they remain a must watch.

SAINT RAYMOND

They’re one of my tips (that’s right because music is exactly the same a horse racing right?) for the latter half of this and all of next year. From Nottingham, though thankfully not sounding like Jake Bugg, Saint Raymond are THE band for anyone who loved the throwaway pop/rock of Two Door Cinema Club but was left utterly disappointed by how shit their second album was.

CIRCA WAVES

I’ve only heard one or two tracks by these newcomers from Liverpool but their catchy yet brash indie-pop – coupled with the major push they seem to be getting from the excellent Big Mouth Publicity – marks them out as a band to watch.

KATE TEMPEST

This might sound a little How I Met Your Mother but the first time I saw Kate Tempest was nearly 5 years ago at slam poetry night in the back end of nowhere pub in London. She strolled onto stage wearing a Charles Bukowski t-shirt and spat out words with the same sort of force and brutal elegance that the great drunken poet would have would have enjoyed.