Live at Leeds in the City is the local incubator music needs right now

Year after year, the iconic festival in the heart of Yorkshire manages to put together one of the best lineups on the indie festival circuit. The list of bands that have passed through before making it big — really big — is a little dizzying, with names such as Lizzo, Charli XCX, Stormzy, Ed Sheeran, and The 1975. "That's what feels really great," says Hubbard. "Today, there's 150 bands, and you know out of some of those, the next megastar is among them. It's just like, which one is it?"

In this sense, the Northern city punches above its weight relative to its population and location, pushing forward its storied reputation as a hub for the live scene and an incubator for new talent.

And perhaps incubator is, really, the best word to describe what Live at Leeds is. Any participating venue you walk into – at any time of the day – is guaranteed to be host to something transformative and beautiful. This is indeed a marvel, considering the event brings over 100 acts to 17 venues across the city. It's not every festival where the 3pm slots are as packed-out as the closers.

My day begins over at The Wardrobe, the festival's hub and home to BEST FIT's own stage where Witch Post bring the energy right out of the gate, packing the basement venue mid-afternoon for a half hour of revelatory indie rock. It's one of those sets that everyone who’s in the know is at: this is Witch Post, after all! (If you know, you know.)

The festival centres itself around a series of bigger-ticket names – this year, that slate includes acts such as Jalen Ngonda, Divorce, and Katy J Pearson – all playing at the Leeds Beckett Students' Union, the biggest room of the day. So after getting acquainted with The Wardrobe, I meander over to the SU to see the opposite end of the Live at Leeds spectrum, stopping in and out of several other restaurants, shops, and participating venues on the way.

Keo, the London-based band fronted by the Keogh brothers and two of their best friends, is already playing to a ravenous crowd of onlookers. Here, the hypothesis that "bands are back" is proven once again. Watching Keo feels like what I can imagine it was like seeing early Coldplay, or maybe even an early Fontaines show. There’s a buzz around them that makes you feel like you’re watching a wave just start to form, one you know is going to get some serious height. Indeed, the festival writ large this year signals the triumphant return of indie rock dominance. From Keo to Witch Post, Westside Cowboy to Adult DVD, most of the high-turnout events of the night are bands’ bands. Audiences, it seems, are craving that bacchanalian, grungy pleasure that only a rock group can satisfy. And if Live at Leeds is any indication – as it always is – the next frontier of this genre is in very good hands.

Live at Leeds' presence in the SU is more than just functional, though. The festival's connectedness with the city that serves as its host is paramount, and that link is perhaps manifested most explicitly through its partnership with the university. Students often work the day as volunteers, Hubbard tells me, and many eventually return as music industry professionals later in life. For Hubbard, watching that evolution year after year is almost as satisfying as watching the artists themselves.

But the real beating heart of the whole affair is to be found at the Brudenell Social Club, a 1950s working men's club that's since been transformed into an unstoppable and legendary indie venue. Going to the Brudenell is like going to another world: kids play pool in the back room and eat pies and pints for dinner, maybe wandering into one of the club's two music halls once sated. Everything – and I mean everything – is panelled in dark wood or leather or carpet, as if in defiant refusal of the modern age and its sad millennial grey. Here, I see musicians so good my lips curl into an involuntary smile, and I watch concertgoers so touchingly content that I can't help but share in their contentedness second hand. Most of my worries, upon entering that venue, slip away, at least for the little while I was there. And after leaving, nothing really feels so bad anymore.

My arrival at Brudenell is rung in by The Man The Myth The Meatslab, a now-London-based singer/songwriter serenading the room entirely unplugged. Only a few times in my life have I felt so intimately connected to a performer than I do with TMTMTM, and to be in his orbit even for a short set feels like a gift. Afterwards, he hops offstage and starts mingling with the crowd, a seemingly routine occurrence in Leeds, where the boundaries between performer, professional, and audience all blur, replaced instead by the comfort of being in a community as music fans and friends. Eventually, I make my way over to share words on his performance and journey up to the city, but our conversation is cut short by the rumble of Dublin upstarts Madra Salach.

"This is my bucket list band," one excited teenager turns to me and says as the Irish five-piece kick off their set. I sought out the group's set per a recommendation, knowing nothing about them or what to expect. I left believing that – a year from now – every self-respecting folk fan will know their name. Blending traditional Irish folk components – think 19th century sea shanties, Irish whistles, and bouzoukis – with modern indie rock, Madra Salach are unlike anything else on the scene, and they know it. As they wrap up, I take another turn around the Brudenell, basking in its communal warmth for a few more minutes before heading back out into the cold, wet night.

For the home straight, I head back to The Wardrobe, this time to see Adult DVD close out BEST FIT’s showcase – and apparently, so has everyone else. To my chagrin, I have to choose between the Leeds-based outfit and Westside Cowboy, the other indie hotshot headliner. Of course, it's a testament to the bookers' taste that the only thing to bemoan about the festival is that there are simply too many good artists to see all at once.

Even despite the schedule clash, the room is once again teeming with people: geezers, cool guys, straight-laced parents, indie girls, and wallflowers hustle to the dancefloor to mosh, crowdsurf, sing, scream, and, to my surprise, make out (quite a lot), intermittently letting out belts of "YORKSHIRE! YORKSHIRE! YORKSHIRE!" at the group.

All the twentysomethings look a bit like Gallaghers or else Courtney Love, most of them blissed-out, rocking back and forth to a stream of ‘80s-inspired strobing synths and stacked guitars. After Adult DVD takes their final bows, the afterparty heats up into full swing. It’s a spectacular end to a spectacular day that is over all too soon, but whose pioneering sounds will reverberate in the ears of everyone in attendance.