Leeds Festival
Leeds, which is hosting its own 12-month cultural festival after Brexit ruined its prospects of being named European Capital of Culture, thousands of people attended a stadium performance to kick off a year of culture.
At the Leeds 2023 opening ceremony at the Headingley rugby stadium, local celebrities such singer Corinne Bailey Rae, poet laureate Simon Armitage, and broadcaster George Webster all gave performances.
As a metaphor for the city, it concluded with lit drones forming a “sleeping giant” over the stadium.
“Wake up Leeds, you’ve got gold in your veins,” Armitage implored in a specially penned hymn to the city that he and his band LYR played at the event called The Awakening.
The event, which was presented at the stadium of the Leeds Rhinos by BBC Radio Leeds announcer Sanchez Payne and BBC Sport’s Gabby Logan, was handed away 10,000 tickets.
The latter is one of Leeds’ most well-known children because she was born there a year before her father Terry Yorath’s Leeds United team won the league championship.
Kadeena Cox, a paralympic athlete, and Jamie Jones-Buchanan, a former rugby league player turned coach, both participated in the programme.
Chumbawamba vocalist Dunstan Bruce and Leeds band Hope and Social performed their 1997 classic Tubthumping with the chorus of Opera North.
The rock group The Solar Jets, whose members are just nine years old, represented the future generation of local talent on display.
Graft, a winner of the Rap Game UK and the Mobo Award, as well as other musicians Testament, Ntantu, Aziz Ibrahim, and tabla master Inder Goldfinger, all gave performances.
Numerous dancers wearing vibrant carnival costumes accompanied a steel drum cover of the Kaiser Chiefs song I Predict A Riot, another success story from Leeds and one of the UK’s oldest West Indian carnivals.
Webster, the first Cbeebies presenter with Down’s syndrome, gave an eloquent statement with his father. Webster recently received a Bafta Award and appeared on the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special.
The UK was scheduled to host the first European Capital of Culture since Liverpool did it in 2008 this year.
