It is 18 years and counting for Please Please You and if the York-based independent live music promoter’s schedule of shows for the early part of 2023 is anything to go by it promises to be yet another brilliant year for gig goers in York, Leeds, and beyond.
The Please Please You global net is once more cast far and wide, bringing to us artists from Canada (The Sadies), Norway (Siv Jakobsen), America (Marina Allen), Wales (Sweet Baboo), New Zealand (Nadia Reid), Ireland (Lisa O’Neill and Brigid Mae Power), and Scotland (Frances McKee), whilst not forgetting the promoter’s ongoing strong commitment towards putting on emerging local talent.
Joe Coates, the man behind Please Please You, isn’t hanging around in 2023 and the new year is only going to be six days old when his first show takes place. Florist, the wonderful American indie folk band from Brooklyn, New York will headline the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds on Friday 6th January, ably supported by Glasgow’s Carsick Charlie and local hero Elkyn. The new gig year is most certainly getting off to a swift and most cracking of starts.
Come the 29th of January and The Sadies take to the stage at the Brudenell, whilst two nights later the English musician and regular This Is The Kit band member, Rozi Plain makes a most welcome return to York at the city’s premier live music venue, The Crescent. Support comes courtesy of the York-based DIY/synth-pop maestro and Please Please You regular since 2009, Mayshe-Mayshe. Last appearing at The Crescent in October when opening for LoneLady, Mayshe-Mayshe has since self-released her second album, Indigo, to widespread critical acclaim.
And February follows suit as the imaginative beat goes on. And on. The indie-folk singer-songwriter Siv Jakobsen gets the month’s creative ball rolling at the Hyde Park Book Club on the 10th at the delightful Hyde Park Book Club in Leeds. A couple of nights later and it is all back to The Crescent for the fabulous Los Angeles musician Marina Allen, here in this country in support of her second album Centrifics.
The very next evening the nine-strong Shovel Dance Collective arrive at the famous Trades Club in Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire from their London base. And then before you know it we are into March and eagerly awaiting the arrivals of Sweet Baboo at the Hyde Park Book Club on the 3rd; Nadia Reid at Mill Hill Unitarian Chapel in Leeds on the 6th; and The Dream Syndicate, first at the Brudenell (on the 9th) and then the Band on the Wall in Manchester (on the 14th).
The brilliant Irish singer-songwriter Lisa O’Neill is another artist playing a couple of shows locally. On the 16th of March she appears in the grand surroundings of the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds and then the following night is at the Black Swan in York for a date that is already sold out. Her fellow countrywoman Brigid Mae Power will be at the same venue exactly a week later on the 23rd of March.
Into April and a real treat is in store for York as Frances McKee from the famed Scots’ indie-pop favourites The Vaselines comes to the city to play a very rare solo show at The Crescent on the 10th of the month. And as if that isn’t enough, the same venue then hosts Newcastle noiseniks Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs on the 20th.
All of the information for the upcoming gigs can be found on the Please Please You website
