Road to Leeds Fest 2026: Garage Flower on Bonehead, Brudenell dreams, and UK takeover plans
From a viral Bonehead co-sign to opening The Ballroom stage at Bramham Park, indie quartet Garage Flower share their Brudenell dreams and why they won't stop until they are the biggest band in the UK
While the focus on Leeds Festival this year seems to be the incredible amount of established UK icons - including Charli xcx and Dave - bear in mind that there is an entire festival field packed with incredible discoveries just waiting to be made.
All the fun of four days at Bramham Park brings the perfect opportunity to catch some of Yorkshire’s most exciting underground acts that you might not have stumbled upon yet.
What better environment to wander between your must-see main stage highlights and potentially lock in your favourite hidden-gem performance of the entire weekend?
One of those acts, Leeds breakout quartet Garage Flower, is set to perform this year - and they certainly aren't shy about sharing their massive ambitions.
"We want to be the biggest band in the UK. If you don’t have that vision, then why are you really doing this?" the band states bluntly. "We love making music, we love playing live, and we want to do that in front of the biggest crowds."
Formed just last year by college friends and football mates, the group’s trajectory shifted overnight during last year's festival season - and they are returning to Bramham Park to complete a massive 12-month circle.
The Full Circle Moment
The road to Bramham Park began in March 2025. "Me, Dylan and Charlie all went to college together at Leeds City College, and Dylan and Josh met while playing football," the band recalls.
"We were all close, loved music, so forming a band together just felt like a natural next step."
Initially cutting their teeth under the moniker The Liabilities, their breakthrough moment arrived unexpectedly during last summer's festival season.
Armed with a modest social following of around 400 people, the band posted a snippet of their track Garage Flower on Instagram right before heading down to Leeds Fest as punters.
The clip caught the eye of Oasis legend Bonehead, who shared it to his story.
"We came back with over 6,000 followers," they explain.
That viral spike paved the way for an official invitation to join the line-up this year - a moment that sent shockwaves through the band's rehearsal space.
"Getting invited to play Leeds Festival was huge for us! It’s where it all started kicking off for us as a band last year," they share.
"We were absolutely buzzing to get the invitation, and we can't wait to play at the end of this month. It is a real full circle moment for us."
Blending 90s Spirit with Congolese Rumba
Rebranding as Garage Flower - a nod to the early Stone Roses era - the four-piece set out to build a sound that honours classic 90s indie, shoegaze, and baggy revival while pushing it squarely into the present.
"We actually started as more of a Punk band called the Liabilities," the group notes. "We have always been into that 90’s and shoegaze type music, loving bands like Stone Roses, Kula Shaker, Happy Mondays and Title Fight.
“So it will always be part of our DNA, but we are trying to push this further and bring our music into this generation."
What keeps the sound fresh, rather than purely nostalgic, is the collision of vastly different personal influences in the practice room.
"We all listen to different genres, and that’s what makes it work," they explain. "Our bass player Josh takes a lot of influence from Congolese music (Seben/Rumba), Dylan more shoegazey like Title Fight, Charlie more early 2000s indie, and I am a lot of 90’s bands.
“So we each bring a different perspective to our songwriting, and when it comes together, it is a blend of all our experiences."
The Leeds Scene & Big Ambitions
Embedded in West Yorkshire's thriving live ecosystem, Garage Flower view the local scene as a vital launching pad.
"There are so many great bands coming out of Leeds at the moment and being part of that movement is really exciting," they say. "We play what comes to us and what feels natural as a band."
While playing massive stages remains the end goal, headline dreams close to home still hold supreme emotional currency—chief among them, selling out the legendary Brudenell Social Club in Hyde Park.
"Brudenell is a venue we have always wanted to headline," the band admits. "Obviously you have the bigger stages like Leeds O2 Academy, but selling out the Brudenell would be a dream for us.
“Maybe a dream that will come pretty soon."
With their debut single Garage Flower having dropped earlier this month and follow-up track Summer arriving on September 4, the band is gearing up for a busy autumn that includes studio sessions and October headline dates in Bristol and Birmingham.
Yet for Garage Flower, this month's Leeds Festival appearance is merely the first major stepping stone toward national status.
"The next few months are a really exciting time for us with our first releases coming, playing our first major festival, and we are hoping that performance will be the springboard on the way to playing Glastonbury!
“Reading & Leeds has always been such a great festival for showcasing new and upcoming artists at a major festival, and we can’t wait to be part of that story."
Garage Flower perform on 30 August on The Ballroom stage, opening the venue with a set from 12:30 PM to 1:10 PM.