By Phil Wright
I always look forward to Sheffield’s Tramlines Festival. Set in Hillsborough Park, this three-day family friendly festival boasts performances by both local and national artists. It has certainly come a long way since its first outing in 2009.
Tramlines boasts three performance stages within the event. The ‘Sarah Nulty Main Stage’, the ‘Leadmill Stage’ and the final one which proves you are in Sheffield ‘t’Other Stage’. The event has a huge range of activities, drinking areas, food stands and merchandise stalls.
Day One in the Tramlines house…
Kicking off proceedings on the Main Stage was ‘Bedroom High Club’. These four lads from Barnsley set a high standard with their high-octane Indie-Rock performance. A brilliant opening to Tramlines.
The Main Stage also saw performances on Friday from Miles Kane, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Paulo Nutini.
‘T’Other Stage’ gave us some great comedy as well as musical talent. This year it hosted the first appearance of Sheffield’s own ‘Matilda Shakes’.
Fate took me to watch the headlining act on this stage, ‘The Charlatans’. I should have been photographing Paulo Nutini on the Main Stage, but he pulled the plug on all press being present. So pleased he did! The Charlatans were tremendous.
I also made it to the Leadmill stage for where I managed to see an outstanding performance from the ‘Mysterines’, a British alternative rock band from Liverpool. Their debut album released in 2022 and reached number 9 in the UK album charts.
Day Two in the Tramlines house…
The second day of Tramlines took me into t’Other tent for a bit of comedy action from Scott Bennett. Scott had everyone in stitches upon his much-anticipated return to Tramlines. Make sure you search for him on YouTube for some cracking comedy if you’ve not seen him before.
T’Other stage hosted a brilliant local performer, ‘Coco’. With an unbelievable stage presence, Coco had the crowd in the palm of his hands with his energetic and talented performance. Strongly believe this guy should have had a Main Stage slot.
A quick sprint, (ok, a pretty fast walk), to the Main Stage to welcome Scottish Indie-Rock band ‘The Snuts’. These guys brought the crowd a whole hour of pleasure with a brilliant set.
In the early evening, under a sun. drenched sky, Tom Grennan burst onto the stage in front of the 40k strong capacity crowd. He was brilliant, the crowd adored him. One member of the crowd held up a sign asking him to sing ‘Gillette… the best a man can get’, which amused him and so he obliged the crowds by singing this for them. I firmly believe that Tom should have been headlining the evening.
Jaime-T was the closing act for Saturday’s events. I had been looking forward to seeing him, however, it soon became evident that he was not up to the ‘Headliner’ title he had been given. Being out of tune, displaying an unprofessional manner and not being up to scratch for what you would expect for a headliner…. many of us left early.
Day Three in the Tramlines house…
Sheffield Sunday was upon us. This was the day I was super excited for, with Sheffield’s own ‘Human League’ due to entertain us.
I had to wait patiently and started my day by being treated to a tremendous performance by ‘Lime Garden’, on the Leadmill Stage. A fantastic up and coming all female band. One to watch out for.
The Sarah Nutly stage housed ‘Maximo Park’, their melodic tunes got the crowd into the party atmosphere for the final festival day.
Seventeen-year-old ‘Flowerovlove’ then performed to the masses. A good performance from this young singer but still a lot of growing to do vocally and on her performance style in my view.
Next up was the festival favourite, ‘Example’, with his unique style of rap. The 30,000 crowd in the park followed his lead and jumped with such much force that they would have measured on the Richter Scale. ‘Example’ never stopped moving for the full 45-minute set. A tremendous performer indeed.
As we approached the time for the eagerly anticipated ‘Human League’, there was a visible movement, from all at the festival, gravitating towards the Main Stage. Human League gave us THE BEST hour of the whole weekend. They played all the hits we wanted to hear and had a phenomenal stage presence and set up. The crowd went absolutely wild when Phil Oakley pointed out that his childhood home was just above the park and how much he appreciated being able to perform back in his home town. These SHOULD have been the headlining act. What a way to close the festival it would have been.
Snow Patrol then took to the stage for the final 1-hour set. Not a favourite group of mine, but they surprised me playing more upbeat songs and giving a stellar performance. After taking what felt like 5 million steps, I decided to head off for the evening after what was an absolutely brilliant weekend. As I was walking back home, I could still hear the crowds singing and cheering Snow Patrol on. A lovely sound to hear to finish off what can only be described as a fun packed, talent fest of phenomenal performances. A brilliantly well organised event by the Tramlines Team and all the cracking volunteers who helped out during the course of the weekend. Thank you to you all!
