ARTIST: The Subways

VENUE: The Cockpit, Leeds.

REVIEW BY: Tom Bailey.

THE Subways are one of those bands that are strangely captivating.

Having caught the last three of their four consecutive performances at the Leeds Festival there’s one conclusion I’ve reached; there’s no fancy tricks or gimmicks here.

Simply put they’re a band that know how to make a racket. Tonight is no exception.

First up, support act 3-Foot Ninja do a decent enough job of warming the crowd up, even if their set did feel rather rushed, with the trio barely surfacing for air between blasts of their high-energy rock.

Cage the Elephant soon followed and, with recent radio hype, promised great things. Unfortunately, these promises fell flat.

Make no mistake, they are certainly an interesting band to watch, most notably Matt Shultz, perhaps the most animated frontman to ever grace a stage.

However, the Kentuckian quintet’s music does falls short of offering anything different enough to grab anyone’s attention.

Thankfully you can always count on The Subways to get a crowd going.

Although the night’s set was dominated by material from debut Young For Eternity, a few tracks from forthcoming sophomore effort All Or Nothing got a preview, most notably single Girls and Boys.

If audience reaction is any gauge of how good a gig is, then this one was off the scale.

The lack of a barrier and front of house security allowed fans to stage-dive throughout the set, much to the band’s delight.

It’s this sense of youthful exuberance and excitement in an age of pretension and posers that really make The Subways such good fun, even if chants of Yorkshire did temporarily confuse frontman Billy Lunn.

The biggest cheers were saved for favourites Oh Yeah, Mary and encore Rock & Roll Queen.

Expect another glorious outing at the band prepare to once again storm this year’s Reading and Leeds festivals.