Leicesterval: Leicester Indiepop Weekender 2026

Event information

Last year's debut weekender went well enough that we're giving it another go, our unlucky for someone thirteenth gathering of DIY greatness in all. Saturday 28th February upstairs from 2pm to around 10.30pm (and there's going to be a dinner break this year!), Sunday 1st March downstairs from 3pm to around 8.45pm followed by an indiepop disco upstairs to midnight.


Saturday:

JETSTREAM PONY
Led by Aberdeen/Trembling Blue Stars/Luxembourg Signal singer Beth Arzy alongside former Wedding Present/Popguns drummer Shaun Charman, Jetstream Pony's 'schrammelig' power-pop and post-punk saw second album Bowerbirds And Blue Things gain approval from Riley & Coe amongst many others.

YEAH YEAH NOH
Leicester's "unpop" band finally make it to a Leicesterval line-up! Originally active between 1983 and 1986, their "Calor-gas psychedelia" ran in parallel to the C86 movement; since reforming in 2011 they've played the odd gig and have a reconstituted line-up and whole new set of songs to go.

WHITE TOWN
Yeah, the one who did Your Woman. Jyoti Mishra may have retreated from that brief moment in the pop spotlight but hasn't let up in the songwriting stakes that he's been mining for thirty-five years ago and has been returning to the live stage of late.

AUTOCAMPER
Jangly without being twee or revivalist, the Mancunians trade in small dramas and melodies that feel like they've always existed. Slumberland Records picked up their 2025 debut album What Do You Do All Day?, described as "a Northern kitchen sink rendering of The Vaselines' call and response motif"

SCHANDE
Having been around the DIY scene in various forms since the early 90s, Schande's noise-pop college rock recalling fuzzy riffage received a boost last year when album Once Around was released on Thurston Moore's Daydream Library Series.

MAYSHE-MAYSHE
Yorkshire's Alice Rowan makes experimental electronic dream-art-pop with a confessional lyrical bent. New album Mosswood, released in October 2025, was inspired by the themes of loneliness, anxiety and nature in Tove Jansson's final two Moomin novels.

JUNK WHALE
Oxford's Junk Whale have been around for a little while, self-releasing an album in 2019, but their fuzzy, vaguel grungy, energetic and emotionally raw songs reached new heights with last year's melodically noisy 'See you around, I guess?' EP.

VELVET CRISIS
More central Riotous Collective family members, the "unapologetically loud and political" garage punks are an inspiration with their subject matter and uncompromising style, but don't tell them that from us.


Sunday:
LOOSE ARTICLES
Manchester's "feminine & threatening" punks have in the last two years opened for the Foo Fighters at Manchester Old Trafford, supported Lambrini Girls and the Lovely Eggs, and played significant stage slots at the likes of Green Man, 2000 Trees and Truck. With a follow-up to their 2024 Alcopop! Records album Scream If You Wanna Go Faster expected soon, expect raucous joy, football shirt love, banter, limbo and wryly socio-political anthemic greatness.

BUGEYE
The Croydon-based quintet fuse disco beats, electro and art-rock into a dancefloor creating whole with dark, raw underside, as demonstrated on 2020 debut Ready Steady Bang with a second album expected in May 2026 on INH Records (Fightmilk, Breakup Haircut)

JEMMA FREEMAN & THE COSMIC SOMETHING
It's difficult to pin down Freeman and their comrades into one easy pigeonhole - wonky, glammy, riffy, powerful and visceral, the epic, exhiliarating world of a defiant neurodivergent queer outsider. God knows what a Leicesterval audience will make of it but we're enthralled to find out.

KNITTING CIRCLE
Featuring members of Milky Wimpshake amongst others, the York-based trio's tense, urgent post-punk angularities house socially conscious and relevant lyrics about war, inhumanity and the perimenopause.

BOILERS
Products of Leicester's Riotous Collective, the successor to the late and never to be forgotten friend of the Alldayer Ruth Miller's Unglamorous, Boilers are loud, scrappy, have songs about cakes and vitamins, and as their anthem says, Boilers Have Got Your Back.


Firebug is an 18+ venue after 7pm. Please bear in mind that the upstairs venue is only accessible via stairs, whilst the downstairs area has only one step up to the entrance.