Lights
The Cockpit, Leeds
21st February 2012
Support from: Nightbox

With a string of sold out shows on Lights’ UK tour, tonight sees her return to Leeds as she graces the intimate crowd at The Cockpit. After being away from us for over a year and half she is back and with a new album to boot as The Siberia Tour is unleashed.

Travelling from Canada with Lights is tonight’s support, Nightbox. A band pretty much unknown to UK audiences, however, don’t fret they’re not Canadian nobodies as the boys actually originate from our not so distant neighbours, Ireland and moved over back in 2010.

Although, the crowd don’t seem to get as involved with the bands indie dance vibe as hoped, it’s clear the girls are loving frontman Jake Bitove with his good looks and Irish accent in tow. Nightbox definitely deserved a better response than they did as their style is exactly what’s big on the British alternative scene at the moment with a heavy sense of Futures and Canterbury sounds in the set, however, unlike these bands they mixed a lot of different sounds in there including a bit of 80’s pop synth too. If the boys come over to us again this year, it’s fairly certain they could do well on the British circuit. If you’re looking for new bands, Nightbox are ones to look out for this year.

After a 40 minute wait and a room full of chanting Northerners, Lights finally took to the stage. A girl that has it all with a voice and looks to die for the crowd were in awe as she played songs off 2011 release, Siberia. It was clear that tonight’s crowd were madly in love with Lights with some girls shouting things to rude for this review. If her 75 minute set wasn’t impressive enough, a fan at the front of the crowd had tweeted Lights earlier that day requesting if she could play the beautiful ballad ‘Heavy Rope’ and of course, known for her complete dedication to her fans she made the song part of tonight’s show.

A set heavily influenced by newer material, the crowd were completely satisfied with older songs chosen including ‘Ice’ and ‘The Last Thing on My Mind’.  Although only a small venue, Lights made every second count tonight showing off her remarkable musical talents and even included her very own encore much to the crowd delight. While no future shows have yet to be announced, Lights will no doubt return to us sooner than before as she plans on touring for the majority of 2012.