Leon Bridges at Alexandra Palace Park
Alexandra Palace Park on a summer’s evening, North London’s skyline heavy with the expectation of rain, was charmed by the honeyed vocals and nostalgic visuals of Texas soul singer Leon Bridges.
Grammy-winner for Traditional R&B Performance, known for a sound that harkens back to 60s R&B and echoes the soul of Sam Cooke, Bridges has released three successful albums since his career-making debut Coming Home (2015). Tonight’s performance featured songs from all four (Good Thing, 2018, Gold-Diggers Sound, 2021 and Leon, 2024).
Eased in by retro-soul group The Sacred Souls and Arc de Soleil’s psychedelic funk, Bridges starts with When a Man Cries. A vulnerable confrontation of masculinity, with ambient piano chords and subtle percussion, his vocals hang in the air, setting the tone for an introspective night on the themes of nostalgia, love, identity and heritage.
The atmosphere was carefully curated in line with Bridges’s sartorial, old soul style. The stage was lit with purple hues, and vintage, retrica-grained visuals flicked between real-time black and white of Bridges; a pink-stained sky, and a vignette-style image of arid golden fields. Bridges is an artist who constantly evokes the past whilst addressing the present.
Six songs in, crowd favourite That’s What I Love has bodies swaying as Bridges reminisces on “sweet moments of [his] childhood”. The groove kicks in with Never Satisfied; its rich 70s-style funk opening is immediately joyful, in comparison to the previously pensive tracks. This energy is maintained for Peaceful Place, where Bridges grooves with an old-school suave to the bongo-driven percussion.
An intentional setlist leads us back down to the hypnotic Mariella, a collaboration with Khruangbin from their Texas Moon EP (2022), which Bridges’s seven-person band execute beautifully. Melancholic but wonderfully warm, this song showcases Bridges’s effortless multi-genre ability. Its minimalist percussion and airy backing vocals create a subtle funk soundscape whilst the reverbed guitar strums are classically country. The same goes for Laredo, which came earlier, and Texas Sun, where the crowd know every lyric to the wanderlust ode to the American Southwest.
A predictable, but no less deserving highlight is River. Irresistibly romantic and perfectly timed with the setting of dusk, the band serenades a sleepy and gentle crowd whose hum of shared contentment was palpable.
Bridges addresses the crowd only twice during the whole performance, once for a delayed introduction seven songs in, and once to declare his love for London. His demeanour is reserved, and his stage presence is in his striking vocals and the effortless way he moves to his music.
The band exits, and Bridges returns solo to a darkened stage to end the night with Lisa Sawyer, a tender ballad about his mother. This track is deeply personal and considered a defining moment in the development of his style. With little need for words, Leon Bridges lit up North London in the soulful glow of a summer’s evening and brought it back down to put it to bed.
Lara Hedge
Photos: Virginie Viche
For further information and future events, visit Leon Bridges’s website here.
Watch the video for That’s What I Love here:
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