Only 4 days til this years Sheffield based party in the heart of the city – TRAMLINES 2013. This year – due to a combination of factors – the festival will not be free. There will be a fee of £6 (door-entry) every day for many of the main stages and music venues. You will also need a wristband to access other places in the city.
So this year, you would be advised to plan your weekend. In the past, visitors were able to slip in-and-out of events and sample music acts as they saw fit. Now, apparently, unless you plan ahead – you will be out-of-pocket.
The festival features hundreds of artists in venues across Sheffield including four outdoor stages. And it gives festival-goers a chance to see established artists alongside up and coming acts.
A large part of Tramlines will still be free – Weston Park, Folk Forest, Cathedral, Peace Gardens and many more fringe events.
Here are our top picks for the weekend:
1: The 616
The 616 are a blusey/grungey alternative five piece rock band from Liverpool. They use sticks and strings to make organised noise.
They cite influences ranging from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Queen of The Stone Age through to The Foo Fighters.
‘Kill The Living’ has an elastic band bass plodding through it like an erratic spider who has consumed too much hooch. The grunge-filled vocal weeps like a muddy stain glossily glooping down a wall. The electric guitars whirr, whizz and blur like fruit skids baked hard in the sun. It’s a fruity collusion of candy peels and neon explosions.
When: Sunday
Where: International Peace Gardens
Link: https://www.facebook.com/The616Band
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2: Polar
Polar are a Hardcore / Metal / Rock from Guildford in Surrey. The release of their debut album, Iron Lungs, cemented their foundation as one of the most promising bands of a generation.
‘Create’ taken from the EP – Inspire Create Destroy – is an intensely exciting shard of brutal intellect paired with vigorously churning guitars. The “ Inspire Create Destroy” chorus flumes like a flame-thrower into the intense heat. The strained voice is mutilated into a thousand shimmering pieces. It’s exciting, loud and totally – cruelly – addictive. This lot won’t come quietly !
When: Sunday
Where: Corporation
Link: https://www.facebook.com/thispolarnoise
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3: PINS
Faith Holgate (vocals, guitar), Lois McDonald (guitar), Anna Donigan (bass), and Lara Williams (drums) from Manchester are the PINS who play a jubillant style of New York nu-gaze crystalline-based, undiluted pop.
‘Say to Me’ has a pile of collapsing drums and a riff caustically growling in the background. A keen, tartly efficient guitar jangles along, then a woo-wooo chorus whistles in like an eagle-owl on the loose. This is an atmospheric wall-of-sound. With a twist.
When: Saturday
Where: Stage Two at O2 Academy
Link: http://www.facebook.com/wearepins
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Patterns
4. Marmozets
Marmozets are a thriling 5-piece band from Bingley, West Yorkshire that have already been described as “The most exciting young band in Britain.” by Kerrang! Magazine.
‘Born Young And Free’ is a tangle of guitars scrumptiously scrambled like high voltage spaghetti . The lemony vocal is icy cold and creates a crusty edge across those tasty rhythms … that build up like snow bombs. The bass has a sexy swagger and and parades around like a panther lurking. This is sleek, exciting and alluring. With a dangerously grotesque edge!
When: Sunday
Where: Corporation
Link: https://www.facebook.com/marmozets
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5: Misty’s Big Adventure
Misty’s Big Adventure are an eight piece band from Birmingham, England. Their music is an eclectic mix of jazz, lounge, psychedelia, 2 tone, pop and punk. A long time fixture on the Birmingham experimental music scene, Grandmaster Gareth formed the band in 1996 with his friend Sam Minnear.
The B-side to the new single, ‘Atonement ’has a devastating barrage of drums and an eloquently spoken voice . Then the toy-box full of sounds gloops out like spilled ice-cream onto the nursery floor. This is a sugary, sticky and vulgarly coloured joy. Wallowing in it’s own ripeness.
When: Saturday
Where: The Harley
Link:
https://www.facebook.com/mistysbigadventure
6: Moose Blood
Glamorous warm-hearted big-bloused emo rock doesn’t come around often. So when it does, take time to catch up. Moose Blood are four friends from Canterbury, Kent who have developed a huge following up north (drinking coffee) and writing some songs.
‘Moving Home’ is fuzzy and frilly – it is like The Cure. But less Goth. More parlour tatting and cleanly folded antimacassar frills. The voice is warm and stoaty, and the half-hitch around the nipples of guitar - tend to coit low – allowing them to protrude sharply from the mulchy rhythms . It’s all about grand-dame theatricals and semi-giltedged splendour.
When: Saturday
Where: DQ
Link: https://www.facebook.com/MooseBlood
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7: Karhide
Karhide, AKA Tim Waterfield, has been programming beats for (as long) as DJ Shadow – but where Josh Davis came from a background of hip hop culture and breakbeats, Tim’s electronic upbringing in the East Midlands was through the industrial-strength beats of Godflesh and Frontline Assembly.
His “Rough Sleep” EP was out on Field Records on the 17th June. We recently described it as: “A kraken of slow moving voluminous bass notes [that] wade through a distorted reed-bed of sounds.”
When: Friday
Where: Penelopes
Link:
https://www.facebook.com/karhide
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Cheatahs
