Raising The Roof and Going Mental
By Mark O’Brien (@MarkOBrien01)…
“Let’s go f**king mental, let’s go f**king mental, nana na na (whey), nana na na (whey)…”
It was a rather unexpected rallying cry from Jordan Clark, local lad and Intake alumnus, and now frontman of up-and-coming brass-edged band Benson. But then Raise The Roof is a rather unexpected night.
“Unexpected” may not be the word. There is nothing out of the ordinary about a Leeds lad geeing up a Leeds crowd with a boisterously Leeds chant. What was unexpected was that it should energise the motley bunch who turned up at Vox Warehouse off Dewsbury Road last Saturday night.
Young hipsters with standard issue specs and beard; dreadlocked boys and face-painted girls. Young lasses garbed in space age dresses; balding old lads in double denim. Daughters keeping an eye on their mothers; girlfriends keeping lips on their boyfriends — only turning away to join in the refrain of “Let’s go f**king mental”.
Billed as a “festival of imagination”, Raise The Roof is a rave for a new generation of raver. For the respectable type who still enjoys a Red Stripe and a smoke for old times’ sake, but who likes to have adequate toilet facilities and a staffed cloakroom to hang his coat for the night.
“Travel Beyond Space” was last Saturday’s theme. To drive past Crown Point into the brooding hinterland separating LS1 from LS11 proper is to cross a final frontier of sorts. But other guests arriving well after dark at the fairy-lit entrance to the warehouse lurking behind the railway line to Castleford.
Some were painted silvery, metallic colours. Even I went so far as to let my ladyfriend glitter my eyes. Star Wars fancy dress was a popular option, but full marks to Bender the robot from Futurama who stole the show.
The interior of Vox Warehouse is elegantly rendered with an appropriately redbrick theme. The space was captivatingly used, with the larger main room hosting the live stage and a smaller more laidback side-room a new addition this year hosted by Speakeasy, Leeds’s leading lights in electro swing whose vintage stylings can be heard monthly at HiFi. Music, dancing performers, visual installations, spacewalking astronaunts—an acid trip waiting to happen.
Local stars new and old graced—or rather, marauded—the stage. After Benson’s bolshie vocals infused with sax and trumpet sounds came the earthy, long-suffering lyrics of Middleman’s frontman Andy Craven-Griffiths battling alongside the explosive drum, bass and guitar of Middleman. But it was the long-standing Brummie ska/soul/reggae outfit The Beat who led the genre-defying (and sometimes sense-defying) line-up.
For the mixed but universally committed crowd, it was not quite “f**king mental”. But certainly gloriously bizarre.