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.


Sunday headliner:

LOOSE ARTICLES
Manchester's "feminine & threatening" punks have in the last two years opened for the Foo Fighters at Manchester Old Trafford Cricket Ground, supported Lambrini Girls and the Lovely Eggs, and played high up the stage at the likes of Green Man, 2000 Trees and Truck, supporting their 2024 Alcopop! Records album Scream If You Wanna Go Faster, with a follow-up expected in 2026. And now they're coming over to wind up our weekend in full-on style. Expect raucous joy, football shirt love, banter, limbo and wryly socio-political anthemic greatness.

Also playing across the weekend, with the other half of the line-up to be announced soon:

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"

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 dinners and vitamins, and as their anthem says, Boilers Have Got Your Back.

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.

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.

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.


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.