The energy and grit radiating from Shame frontman Charlie Steen is a sight to behold. Spotted in the smoking area just a few minutes before their set, it was a zero to one hundred transition from his calm off-stage persona into the shirtless machine that proceeded to dominate the stage all night.
Toying with the crowd and the mic stand all night, Steen and Shame magnificently brought their intense album Drunk Tank Pink to a full-capacity Leeds crowd for the first time, causing a ruckus on and off-stage for the duration of the show. Highlights included the timeless ‘One Rizla’ and the eerie ‘Snow Day’, as the band’s versatility amidst their coherent, angry style transcended sonic boundaries.
Aided by Leeds Beckett Students’ Union’s immaculate sound quality, the band’s headline performance felt both mature and dominant; a culmination of their graft from their South London roots up to this point. Steen will surely go on to be one of the most recognisable frontmen of this genre and arguably this generation, and it begs the exciting question of what may come next in this unique band’s pivotal third chapter.
