Beloved Leeds band Yard Act announce returning headline show at O2 Academy with third album pending
Beloved Leeds band Yard Act have announced their first headline performance in the city for over two years.
The eclectic four-piece has announced details of its first run of UK headline dates since August 2024, with three new shows for later this year.
The band return to Leeds on November 6 for a date at the O2 Academy, before shows at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester on November 13, and O2 Academy Brixton on November 26. These dates follow the band’s first show of the year at the 6Music Festival this Friday (March 27) in Manchester.
Tickets go on artist presale from 10am tomorrow (Wednesday) before hitting general sale at 10am on Friday 27th March.
Yard Act completed the touring for their technicolour, critically acclaimed second album Where’s My Utopia? with a victory lap at the 5,000 capacity Millennium Square in Leeds in August 2024.
It was a record that brought a stark change of pace to the acerbic, post-punk of their debut, embracing something altogether more playful and bringing a different energy.
It shifted the dynamic on stage too, with the addition of dancing backing singers and additional musicians and openly challenged listeners to reconsider who they thought Yard Act were.
Speaking to the Yorkshire Evening Post about the Millennium Square show last April, guitarist Sam Shipstone said: "That was really something, that one. Sometimes with festival shows, even though they’re important, you just sort of get into a flow. But that one was very flow-obstructing. It was like, 'Oh my god, this is big. I hope this goes alright.'”
Drummer Jay Russell added: "We all had close friends and family there. And I think that adds a completely different level of pressure than playing in front of a crowd of people you don't know."
"It felt like such a privilege to be able to block off a central part of the city to play stupid music," Sam laughed.
Since then, the band have remained active, whether writing Where’s My Utopia’s follow-up or getting back on stage, heading out across the UK and Europe with The Hives, which was preceded by an intimate one-off show at Blackpool Tower last May.