Live Review: Beauty School - The Key Club, Leeds, 02/11/2024
Local lads Beauty School bring their co-headline tour with fellow emo kids Jetski to the familiar surrounds of Leeds’ Key Club.
Leeds, for those of who don’t live there, is a cursed city; an almost-impenetrable island surrounded, it seems, on all sides by one-way-systems, bus lanes and towering student accommodation whose architects also seem to be the set designers from Blade Runner. For those willing to run the gauntlet of wrong junctions, expensive parking and on this particular evening, hordes of students dressed as Mario, minions and of course, cats, the rewards are high. The city is home to a wealth of grassroots venues all regularly hosting shows in support of Leeds’ rich and varied music scene.
Tonight, it’s the turn of The Key Club, a small basement venue on the edges of the Merrion Centre. Descending into depths of the club, it’s immediately obvious that it’s been hard to compete with the inexorable pull of Halloween bar crawls on the student population. At roughly half capacity though, it makes a welcome difference from last time we were here, and we’re able to catch the latter half of Sheffield emo-kids Jetski from a decent location at the back of a growing crowd.
Bridging the gap between classic and contemporary emo, there’re echoes of bands such as The Promise Ring as much as the more recent likes of Pup. And as the four-piece make the stage their own, it’s a little disappointing that on a co-headline tour the venue seems as quiet as it does.
It matters not to Jetski, though, who succeed in breathing another level of energy and urgency into the live iterations of tracks such as ‘Toneblerone’ or ‘Vanborgini’, something that works in their favour. And though such a modest crowd affords little opportunity for any mosh-pits or crowdsurfing, each track is well received, and for those of us previously unacquainted with the band, it provides the perfect introduction.
With just enough time for a trip to the bar and merch desk, we’re back in front of the stage just as home-town heroes Beauty School take to the stage proper. No strangers to The Key Club, this is the fourth time the band have played here in 18 months, and the second time we’ve seen them here. Today, however, it seems even their local status isn't enough to compete with the free shots and fancy dress happening in almost every other bar and club across the city as the room still feels surprisingly sparse.
It makes for both an intimate and somewhat visceral show, however. Those of us in attendance sing back every word frontman Joe Cabrera belts out. And whilst the room might feel on the quieter side, the crowd’s voice is far from it. It’s something Cabrera might well be thankful for, given his admission of being on Day 6 of the tour and that he’s “hanging on by a thread”.
You wouldn’t know it though. ‘Evergreen’ gets perhaps its most impassioned outing we’ve seen to date. A painfully personal song that succeeds in baring its soul in such a way as to make it universal.
Perhaps it’s the intimacy, or perhaps the intensity. But there’s something about tonight’s gig that feels more akin to a basement or garage show than one at an established venue. There’s no barrier between band and crowd, physical or otherwise, and the urgency with which tracks are delivered is nothing short of impressive.
This is perhaps most evident as the band tune up for recent single ‘Cowboy Milk’ as guitarist Daniel tunes to the wrong song, much to the amusement of his bandmates, and indeed the crowd, whilst elsewhere, a request for Jordan to get “more of himself in his ears” sees the whole room chant his name. It’s scrappy and it’s endearing, and it’s exactly what this kind of music should be about, in the sort of venue that’s vital to its city, and the bands it produces.
As if on cue, Cabrera espouses the importance of such venues and how they’re vital for bands such as them earning their stripes, before launching headfirst into an explosive ‘Pawn Shop Jewels’. Arguably the band’s biggest track to date, there’s not a single person in the crowd not in full voice, and no matter how many times we see the track done live, it seems better with each and every offering.
Of course, they could leave things there, but as chants of “one more song!” ring out around there’s still time “for a not very well rehearsed” encore. With that, Beauty School launch into previous single ‘Take It Slow’, providing both band and crowd one more opportunity to give it their all.
Having fallen in love with Beauty School at Download Festival in 2023, it’s been a pleasure to see them go from strength to strength over the last 18 months, and while the effects of tour might well have been showing tonight, it didn’t stop the band from being the most enjoyable we’ve seen them. And with new material promised, it likely won’t be long before we get to do it all over again.
Words by Dave Beech
