Tramlines Festival

[Timmoru Suzuki]

In case anyone feels like swinging by South Yorkshire this weekend, in Sheffield there is the second Tramlines Festival, a FREE music festival held across venues all over the city. The main stage is on Devonshire Green, but there's stuff going on in clubs and bars all over the city.

Acts include Echo and the Bunnymen, Mystery Jets, 65daysofstatic, Rolo Tomassi, Craig David, Dane Bowers, Focus, Toddla T, Dinosaur Pile-up, Annie Mac and loads more.

Website

Festival Programme

For me, I think it'd be nice to just hearing some free music, even if a lot of the line-up isn't the sort of stuff I'd normally listen to. Just checked out a Focus song, and I'm looking forward to me and DFF/WFS seeing them tomorrow.

[Skummy]

Finally, my dreams of seeing Dane Bowers and Rolo Tomassi on the same bill have been fulfilled.

[DFF]

In case anyone feels like swinging by South Yorkshire this weekend, in Sheffield there is the second Tramlines Festival, a FREE music festival held across venues all over the city. The main stage is on Devonshire Green, but there's stuff going on in clubs and bars all over the city.

Acts include Echo and the Bunnymen, Mystery Jets, 65daysofstatic, Rolo Tomassi, Craig David, Dane Bowers, Focus, Toddla T, Dinosaur Pile-up, Annie Mac and loads more.

Website

Festival Programme

For me, I think it'd be nice to just hearing some free music, even if a lot of the line-up isn't the sort of stuff I'd normally listen to. Just checked out a Focus song, and I'm looking forward to me and DFF/WFS seeing them tomorrow.

Yeah, it should be good fun. I'm glad you like the Focus song - they are an utterly mad bad. 70's Dutch prog bang whose lead singer plays the flute, organ and... yodels. He also sings in gibberish too.

Finally, my dreams of seeing Dane Bowers and Rolo Tomassi on the same bill have been fulfilled.

It gets better, Dane Bowers and Craig David are back-to-back!

In all honesty, there's a nice selection of music across the days. I've not had to chance to check a lot out but the main rockier stuff seems to be at West Street Live on the Sunday.

This is the second year they've done this festival, and it'll be the firs time I've gone so it'll be an adventure at least. Last year they got around 35,000 people turn up throughout the City Centre and they're hoping to double that this year - I bet the City Council loves the organisers

[Timmoru Suzuki]

They should, dragging Sheffield into relevance for 3 days a year!

[DFF]

They should, dragging Sheffield into relevance for 3 days a year!

Apparently the City Centre is rammed already. They seem to have booked the International Food Faire to coincide with it - might have to check out a kangaroo burger

[Gazz]

Roo is damn tastty.

[DFF]

Here's a review I put up on my FB:

So that Tramlines Festival 2010 has been and gone. Here's what I made of my first iteration of the annual 'free urban festival'.

A fair amount has been said regarding the City Council's decision to back the free festival, with a few defiant voices standing against the majority, the latter of which favouring it's yearly inclusion, stating arguments such as noise pollution and wasted expenditure as their main gripes.

So was it worth it?

In my opinion, yes.

Boasting 53 venues (approximately double that of the inaugural year), the City Centre was teeming with people of all musical backgrounds, wandering here and there to catch a glimpse of what was on offer.

Artists from rock, dance, indie, hip-hop and everything in-between graced the numerous establishments and helped make Tramlines '10 a resounding success on many levels. A cultural triumph for the City, ironically following it's defeat some weeks before in its City of Culture bid.

For me, things kicked off on the Friday evening with The Bedford Incident at Penelope's, a venue so hilariously (or not) placed/advertised that I never knew it existed, despite being attached to the Odeon cinema on the one of the busiest roads in Sheffield City Centre.

Indeed, walking down the claustrophobic, twisty staircase, you had to wonder whether it was a bar we were going to, or some kind of crack den. Thankfully it was the former. In fact, for all it's out-of-the-wayness and such misgivings, it had an underground quaintness to the venue.

Still, the venue is no good if the bad aren't. TBI describe themselves as 'Indie/Electronica/Psychdelic'. Hmmm... interesting. In practice though, it's more of the former and less of the latter. That's not a bad thing, however. as they treat the small crowd to some laid back, summery tunes. If there was any gripe to be had, it was that the vocals weren't that distinguishable (on this occasion at least), and it meant that they didn't stand out too much. Even so, the bands positive attitude (and bribery with free CDs!) certainly did them no harm. [6.5].

The group of us then headed down to The Leadmill for our main attraction of the evening. But we got there a little early, so we 'experienced' The Arch Nazzards. This was a band that divided opinion heavily, with their bouncy melodies; some of my friends really dug the rhythms, whilst others were clearly bored. Personally, I think there were okay at what they did, but weren't anything special at all, and didn't stand out. [5.5]

If The Arch Nazzards caused rifts in our group, then headliners Focus practically started a war between a few of them. The mad 70's Dutch progsters recently found some exposure again thanks to the use of Hocus Pocus on the Nike World Cup adverts. Of course, they saved that ditty until last. Up to that point they took us on a tour of their back catalogue, ranging in both tempo and length (they even included 26-minute track 'Eruption' in their set!).

Their (heavily instrumental) music generally went down excellent, yours truly included, with quicker passages resembling something a Blackmoore-era Deep Purple, or Rainbow might produce through to the slower passages that wouldn't have been out of place on a Floyd album - all the while garnished with dollops of Jethro Tull's madness (and flutes!). Not to the taste of everyone, but they are amazing musicians and I loved them. [9].

The Saturday saw me catching up with friends earlier in the day over a kangaroo or ostrich burger (The Continental Food market was in town - and, for the record, both are nice burgers). The first act I remember seeing was Bollywood Dance [5], who were fine for a track or two, but quickly seemed a little pointless and all too much of a novelty act. Things improved a bit with The Sheffield Samba Band [6], and even moreso with the Baghdaddies [7.5], the latter of which were very entertaining with their eastern influenced music. It's a pity they were only given time for three songs, because they went down a storm.

After a wander for Guinness and some food, we headed over to one of Sheffield's rock pubs, The Dove & Rainbow. There we were treated to a great set from hard rockers Havana Rocks. Swaggering songs with soaring vocals, coupled with some intricate solos and plenty of showmanship left the crowd baying for more. [8.5]

Sunday took a while to get going for me, as I was still feeling the effects of the previous night. After seeing HR, we headed down to Corporation for another three hours of rock and metal fun. So much fun that I still have a slightly stiff neck now!

We started off at West Street Live where (I believe) we saw August 80. They were a little samey in places, but certainly woke us up! Haha! [6.5].

After this rather heavy start to the day, we headed down to Weston Park and caught the end of a (separately organised) blues festival, before returning back into town, to West Street Live again to catch, I think, Gretanova [6.5] who were okay, and then for Naisian [8] whose progressive heavy/death metal I alone in our group seemed to enjoy. I say 'I think' because the website times, the program and the posters at the venue all conflicted with each other. I know that we saw Naisian as there was a guy giving out merch afterwards, and from the photos I've recognised August 80. Heh.

We then headed over to Devonshire Green for my first and only foray to the main stage, for Echo and the Bunnymen, who put on an entertaining performance that seem to be universally lauded. Cool moment of the set - getting Richard Hawley to guest on one of the songs at the end. [8].

A pint or two later and we were off again. Firstly, we attempted to see 65daysofstatic. However, some sort of power failure meant that they couldn't play, much to the disappointment of the reported 600 people waiting outside of the University of Sheffield's student union. With a couple of people heading off (after another pint), what was left of us headed back to West Street Live to check out The Venkman Heist, who played out the remainder of the festival with hard rocking aplomb - it's just a pity that the crowd size was as small as it was, as these guys really rocked WSL to it's core. [9]

And that brought an end to my first Tramlines festival. It was a great experience, helped by some good bands, tasty food and great mates. I think there is only one way I can sum up the entire weekend:

"Good times."