Catfish and The Bottlemen's big comeback at Leeds Festival 2024

I still remember exactly how I found out about it. One minute I was just scrolling, not expecting anything, and the next I saw that Catfish and the Bottlemen were coming back and not just anywhere, Leeds Festival 2024. After their breakup in 2021, I genuinely thought I’d never get the chance to see them live. They’d always been one of my favourite bands, one of those you assume you’ll get around to eventually, until suddenly you can’t. So when that announcement dropped, it didn’t even feel real. I was jumping around my room, calling my friends straight away, and within minutes we had tickets. We didn’t even look at the rest of the lineup, we just knew we had to be there on the Friday.

From the second they walked out, there was this release in the crowd that you could feel instantly. It wasn’t just excitement, it was relief. Like everyone there had been devastated when they broke up and prayed for the day they could come back. This was the moment it all finally paid off.

They opened with 'Longshot', and it was like no time had passed at all. The cheers that ran through the crowd conveyed the excitement surrounding the comeback. I remember the weather was terrible that day, Storm Lillian had hit that morning. loads of stages and sets were cancelled on the friday morning into early afternoon. I was lucky enough that Catfish was playing later that evening, the last act before friday's headliner, Liam Gallagher.

What stood out straight away was how unified everything felt. Just pure, driving energy. 'Kathleen' hit early and the reaction was exactly what you’d expect, thousands of voices taking over, louder than the band at times. It didn’t matter if you’d seen them before or not, that song still felt like a shared moment.

The setlist leaned into everything people had been missing. 'Soundcheck', 'Pacifier', and 'Twice' came in a run that barely gave you time to breathe, each one building on the last. Seeing lead singer, Van McCann, back onstage was surreal. His stage presence was contagious. I remember being gathered with my friends trying to figure out what song they were going to play next as there was no setlist to base it off. Every song played was like another mini surprise to us.

By the time 'Fallout' and 'Conversation' came around, the entire field felt locked in—no one standing still, no one just watching, it was electric. There was something about hearing those songs live after so long that made them hit differently. Tracks like 'Homesick' and '2all' carried more weight than they used to, like the time away had added something to them. I remember praying that they would play '2All' one of my favourite songs, and the joy and excitement that ran through me once the first notes hit is something i remember to this day. And then 'Rango' one of those songs that already feels massive just completely took over the crowd. I was on a high. All the songs you hoped would be played, were being performed.

It wasn’t perfect in a technical sense, but that almost felt irrelevant. What mattered was the energy, and that never dropped. If anything, the rough edges made it feel more real like you were watching a band that hadn’t lost anything, just been paused for a while.

When their song '7' hit, off the 'The Ride' album, the crowd seemed to find a newfound energy as this was their second last song of the night. Just as the instrumental was ending before the last chorus, Van McCann done his famous chant screaming out "Leeds Festival! Louder!", something he had always done, switching it up to wherever they were playing. When the last chorus finished, he just kept saying again which led to a crowd singalong, where the band let the crowd take over the singing acapella. We sang the same chorus over and over again, the crowds voice merging into one and taking over the field, it was magical.

The last song they played was probably their most known song, 'Cocoon' off their debut album 'The Balcony'. Van had the crowd cheering before they started the song. when he announced what song it was, the screams that surrounded the field were electric. everyone was singing along immediately, louder than the band themselves. Van himself, was jumping along the stage, going mental with the crowd, clearly feeding off our energy. I remember my group of friends getting into a circle halfway through the song, not even looking at the stage anymore, but feeding off the crowds energy and just going crazy with each other, singing at each other.

They had played an extended outro. They had finished the song, but started singing the last chorus again, encouraging the crowd to keep going. We must have sang the chorus a couple times, every time it came to an end, van McCann would start it up again, it was amazing. the crowd sang as one.

By the end, it didn’t feel like just another festival set. It felt like a comeback in the truest sense, like something had been missing and, for that hour, it was finally back where it belonged.

I didn't take many videos of photos, too lost in the euphoria of finally getting to see one of my favourite bands live. And standing there in that crowd, it was hard not to think the same thing over and over again: it was worth the wait.

Catfish and The Bottlemen performing on main stage at Leeds Festival, August 2024

Catfish and The Bottlemen's Leeds setlist: https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/catb-leeds-festival-24/pl.ub3b81bDSyWry8JD

Similar artists and songs: https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/similar-to-catb/pl.u-AkAmMN3T2Jg2Z8z