If I’m honest I would have thought that a band like Goldfrapp would have done a similar thing to other bands of this size and genre and just skipped Leeds, instead visiting Bristol, Birmingham, Milton Keynes,Sheffield and Manchester, so good on them. Leeds awaits the much needed arena so that the more succesful bands have no excuse but to visit this great city.

What was really surprising was that the O2 Academy was only half full when Goldfrapp, who I believe to be the most outstanding genre busting yet succesfull band in the land visted us.

Alison was really on form when she took to the stage with ‘Crystalline Green’ in a black metallic boa like outfit. her voice is truly outstanding, my wife who can be critical of voices (who isn’t these days with X-factor and all) was really impressed. Everyone in the band performed as if they were making a live CD, and it turns out this is what they did in Bristol and its available now in the Goldfrapp store.
Not all the favourites are there, the singles, ‘Happiness’ and ‘Rocket’ were fairly conspicuous by their absence but maybe this was something to do with the band not wanting too many singles on the live recording.

The crowd didn’t really get going till they played ‘Number 1’ – not really one of my faves, and of course ‘Ooh La La’ was there and about 6 tracks from ‘Head First’, their latest album which while a bit different from Seventh Tree (their best album), still see’s them stamp their mark and their songwriting has gone to a new level, especially with Alive and Head First. Only a pity they didn’t play ‘A&E’ and ‘Pilots’ but otherwise it was a blast of fresh air.

So thank you Goldfrapp for visiting Leeds for one night, even though you may have got a better audience in Bristol or Manchester, I for one had a fantastic night, as did everyone else, astute enough to come and see you.

Album number 5 - Head First