Leeds, Leeds, Leeds! Wormboys and All Girls Arson Club defy the rain and call for trans liberation

My 20 best gigs of the year blog is already done and dusted so it's a particular kind of Niluccio hypocrisy-cum-senselessness that sees me still turning up at shows toward the tail-end of the year blithely disregarding whether these could be yet more great gigs that by rights should be chucked straight into the highly-coveted top 20 list. Yeah, the whole thing's clearly a complete travesty. So I've done just that. Smugly posted my blog about a so-called "best 20" and promptly gone along to another very good one. Absolute madness. Anyway, this was Wormboys and All Girls Arson Club at a somewhat hard to find place apparently called the Canal Drawing Offices in the Armley district of Leeds ("go down the alleyway between the furniture shop and the ice-cream place and we're on the left"). So, on a storm-lashed Leeds night, that's what we did: went down the alleyway, across the sodden duckboards and ... plunged into an event that was a bit like a night-time fête: stalls with raffle tickets, baked goods, home-made jewellery and other stuff for sale, and a slight air of hilarity. Inclusive fun for all the family. First up (in fact already playing when we got there): Wormboys. Good stuff, I thought. Slightly fragile vocals and a sense of calm that could sometimes suggest twee-pop but then confound that expectation with a sudden swerve into grunge and heaviness (check out Mostly Still). At other times they unleashed a driving, anguished rock sound that managed to take us into whiplashed PJ Harvey territory. Fair enough - they can do more than one thing. Their set was also memorable for an impassioned rallying-cry speech from the bassist, who was demanding "trans liberation" and urging us to "fuck politicians" and bring this about by our own actions. Who am I to disagree? (No-one). Anyway, this genuinely stirring speech was met by applause, cheerful hoots and even (unless my ears misled me) chants of "Leeds, Leeds, Leeds!". Then it was All Girls Arson Club, the guitar-and-drums two-piece who'd recently ventured down from Manchester for the Delicious Clam in London extravaganza - also, now I think about, held on a day of incessant rain. They had super-tuneful songs (slightly hampered by the sound on the night), a relaxed vibe and some kind of undefinable feel-good factor. They don't take themselves seriously but I'm not deceived: they're good. I've listened to their Bandcamp on and off all this godforsaken fucked-up year, and ... it never fails. So there you have it: three brave people venture forth into the rainy Leeds night, make it to the gig in the wilds of Armley and ... go home again. I even got a Wormboys badge, which is apparently made from an old piece of circuit board. So, all in all I think I can safely say that this would definitely have been a worthy gig to have found a place in the highly-regarded Niluccio on noise best gigs of the year during 2023 list. Except, of course, I've already done that ... 

A fully-paid-up Wormboy