O2 Academy, Leeds 11th October 2026
An enthralling evening of deeply atmospheric music in the most incongruous of surroundings.
Resplendent in traditional red robes, drawing the eye on a huge dark stage more used to rock bands, Batzorig Vaanchig was surrounded by a trio of 2-string bowed instruments, a couple of sound monitors and a single mic, decked with assorted jaw harps. Out in the two thousand capacity space, were five or six hundred excited young people, adding a buzz often absent in that venue. Cheers went up for favourites or particularly splendid passages. Quiet attentiveness alternated with wild applause and shouts in a most surprising way.
The music itself demands focus and it got it from this crowd that knows the man through online videos. This sort of act would usually be in a theatre or church or other seated venue so it was nothing short of gobsmacking to see so many standing people intent on a single seated performer. I’d expected an ennui after the initial amazed delight at hearing that voice in person but, after having seen friends turn to each other smiling in surprise, the focus was maintained through extended folk music in an alien language.
Truly out there, there were moments when the high lonesome sound of the lonely steppe, echoing similar sounds from the American prairie, shifted into the other world where lone bagpipes live, where melody becomes something abstruse. Elsewhere I heard the rhythms of horses galloping or trotting, plucked or bowed on horsehair-strung instruments. Vaanchig’s voice demonstrated there isn’t one throat-singing voice; there are many, from the Rob Bryden ‘man-in-a-box’ to vibrating tones to deep and round. And just when the newness is at a peak, his warm tenor comes out for contrast. It’s quite a voice but the instrumental range is as surprising to me. We hear some oriental note intervals, we hear drone that could have come from the first Velvet Underground album and we hear many songs about mountains, lakes, horses and nomadic life. It’s a like a documentary without the wandering camera gaze. And, of course there are two songs in praise of Genghis Khan – the second sending the crowd into an ecstatic roar of recognition as the song they recognise from the viral mountain-top video. And then, there’s the tune Batzorig composed for Netflix’s ill-fated Marco Polo drama series.
Alongside a diversion into three different sorts of jaw harp and some virtuoso high-speed playing and singing, there are introductions and explanations from uber-fan and promoter, Rowan Hartsuiker, who has brought this unique experience on tour and is clearly as thrilled as the audience. As I wrote at the outset, this is so amazingly surprising and out of place that it charms me to see so many people concentrating on this traditional art form, lending it an attention we hear the digital age has robbed us of – here it has brought that attention close and channelled it.
Ross McGibbon