Big Hands
Random Hand are almost a local band hailing from just up the road in Keighley. Our first glimpse of them came last year on the unsigned stage where they did more than enough to make us want to check them out properly on the Lock Up stage this time round. As the first band on this stage on a Sunday you’d be forgiven for not expecting a huge crowd but they do surprisingly well and there are a fair few Random Hand tshirts in the audience.
Random Hand are basically a four piece hard edged ska punk band that are extremely good at what they do. If you had to compare them to anyone you’d say they were more like Capdown, managing to combine the grit and growl of hardcore punk with some kicking ska beats. With singer Robin Leitch also handling trombone duties they manage to create a really full sound for a four piece and with some big choruses it’s all very impressive. The sound isn’t fantastic and the vocals are not too clear early on but that doesn’t take much away from the performance, which is just great! They don’t waste the opportunity that stepping up to this stage affords, ensuring that there is plenty of movement going on and they are clearly having fun.
There’s decent movement form the crowd at the front and they keep the between song banter to a minimum, cramming as much as they can into their half hour slot. The longer they play the more I get into it and the more I’m convinced that they can fill the gap left by Capdown. Excellent stuff and well worth checking out.