There’s something appropriate about a first headline show happening in a room that feels like it might just burst at the seams. On a Monday night at Oporto in Leeds, Cherryholt’s step up to top billing played out in the venue’s sweaty side room, the East Midlands five-piece wedged on to a stage barely big enough to contain them. Equally confined, a sold-out crowd was pressed shoulder to shoulder in front of them.
They opened with The Bullet, and from the first chorus lead singer Reuben had the room in the palm of his hand, the crowd with arms aloft carrying this energy into the rest of the night. There’s a confidence to Cherryholt; this wasn’t a band testing the waters, but one diving in headfirst. Rose and the new track Seventeen followed, showing already that there’s more good stuff to come.
Bailey shifted the mood. A slower-burning indie ballad, it drew one of the night’s biggest responses, voices rising in unison, phones momentarily left pocketed. In these down-tempo moments Cherryholt reveal a depth beyond the sunlit hooks. Flies restored the bounce, all infectious, summery lift and that classic British indie shimmer, a song that feels tailor-made for festival fields, even if delivered here under low ceilings and sticky floors.
Just a Pastime, delivered acoustically, stripped everything back, exposing in a way that could have unsettled a lesser frontman. Instead, it landed beautifully, vulnerable but assured. By the time Cut Me Down surged forward with greater drive and a more impassioned edge, you could feel the band stretching into something bigger, more urgent.
And then, inevitably, Irresistible. Their breakout, TikTok-propelled anthem arrived in a blur of raised arms and communal euphoria. Sunny, sharp and impossible not to sing along to.
What stood out almost as much as the band was the audience. Young, attentive, responsive but refreshingly measured. No compulsory mosh pits for every chorus, no performative chaos. Instead, a crowd that felt discerning, there to listen in as much as to leap around.
For a first headline show, it was more than promising. It felt like the beginning of something too expansive to stay confined to small rooms for long.
