Tramlines Festival

Tramlines Festival, held annually at Hillsborough Park, Sheffield, is renowned for its line-up of local and national bands, artists and performers who have managed to stay relevant and idolised through to the decades alongside those who are paving their way in the music industry. It spans Friday to Sunday and attract fifty thousand music lover, young and older, who are eager to witness performances from some of the best names in music.

Friday
Friday at Tramlines saw a whole host of stars grace the stages of Hillsborough Park. Miles Kane was one of the biggest stars to play first on this day with a set of his songs through the ages. His stage presence was insane: commanding the stage, interacting with the crowd and the band making sure to hype everyone up through his set – paired alongside pristine vocals and powerful instrumentals. Miles played some of his biggest hits including ‘Inhaler’ and ‘Come Closer’ at Tramlines which were widely received by the crowd.

On this day we also had the pleasure of welcoming one of the biggest names in 00’s pop, Sophie Ellis-Bexter. Arguably my highlight of the weekend, Sophie spent her set interacting with the audience with sheer enthusiasm and bad b**ch energy which mirrored the vibe created her incredible sparkly outfit. During Sophie’s set she covered Abba and Madonna which sent the audience in a spin as they belted their hearts out to every line and of course, finished her set on ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’.

Friday’s headliner was Paolo Nutini which felt slightly anti-climactic after the day’s crazy events leading up to this. He played a range of his most popular tracks including ‘Last Request’ and ‘Pencil Full of Lead’ with passion and precision but it didn’t quite seem enough to warm up this crowd which appeared slightly stale during this set compared to the previous crowds of this day.

Saturday
Saturday saw Scottish band ‘The Snuts’ on the main stage who attracted a reasonably full crowd considering their slot was maybe earlier than most of the festival goers would expect. The band were full of energy with racing riffs and banging beats throughout the majority of the set. However, the sound quality wasn’t brilliant which slightly took the shine off things. Despite this the band still performed one of the best of the weekend with some of their most popular hits such as ‘Glasgow’ and ‘Always’ which sent fans flying who were further forward in the pit.

Another band I think deserve a mention on this day were Cucamaras from Nottingham who played The Leadmill stage. The band gave it their all throughout their entire set getting the crowds to create circles, interacting and inflating the atmosphere up to rise the tensions when they played a breakdown with their instruments. Cucamaras also used their set to make a political point as they wrapped a Palestine flag around the mic stand.

Jamie T graced the stage to headline which was an overall lacklustre set and slightly disappointing. He played a range of his biggest hits including ‘Sheila’ and ‘Zombie’ which are extremely popular with indie music lovers in the UK, but Jamie also chose to slag off Sheffield which didn’t go down great with the locals and generally just left a bad taste which tarnished his set from my perspective.

Sunday
On Sunday, literally five minutes after the doors opened and the flood gates aka a sea of music lovers stormed through Hillsborough Park is search of booze and bands, Alt-Rock/Dance band Static Lives play their set. A band I’m not particularly familiar with but really surprised me with their fire and spirit making it an absolute joy to watch considering it felt like this was something the weekend particularly lacked.

Example, one of the UK’s biggest rapper, songwriters, was given a 4pm set which I found absolutely, totally bizarre considering the genre of music he makes. His set was pretty good with lots of his classic tunes setting a spell of reminiscence on the crowd.

As we move to the end of Tramlines 2024, another bizarre decision from the organisers occurred in the form of putting local band The Human League on prior to the headliner which was Norther Irish-Scottish band Snow Patrol. The Human League were absolutely impeccable sending the crowd into real life electric dreams and coercing each and every one of us to sing our hearts out to ‘Don’t You Want Me’. Snow Patrol closed the festival and really did give it their all despite set arrangements playing some of their biggest hits such as ‘Chasing Cars’ and ‘Run’. It was fun, to an extent, but overall really did just feel quite a bland way to finish the weekend off.

Photo credit: Matt Higgs