Tramlines is a small independent festival held every year in Sheffield's city centre which explores new bands to perform across three days over various stages, it's very cheap in price at £15 for the weekend and only £6 for a day.
I only was attending the Saturday at the Corporation which held my favourite genre of pop punk bands. The same venue was split over two days and held a more hardcore scene of bands on the Sunday which I could not attend to. (Marmozets, Feed The Rhino, Decade and Polar.)The show started at 5pm, as the doors to the run-down warehouse of a venue opened to a dark black room where crowds of people gathered together all around the venue.
The first band to start off the festival line up was a London band called Bloody Knees, I had previous heard of them a short while ago and gotten into their music, as their genre was pop punk, however it was more punk-core in itself, with the strange, uniqueness of Brad (lead vocalist) voice mixed with the original three piece, bass, guitar and drums. At this point the crowd was pretty clam in just swaying with the accosaianly head bang and mosher, but everyone seemed like they were trying to get into them. I certainly was. I also noticed another strange thing about the band, the bass player (Sam) was only playing with two strings, yet the hard riffs still stuck in my head. Bloody Knees have a bloody great performance, for a warm up band they got the crowd hooked and interested. They grabbed the attention of new listeners with their fast paste beats mixed with an old fashioned voice that gave you goosebumps.
They even gave a great performance, bouncing around, air flipping in the middle of songs, making sure that the audience was interacted and not standing still, they defiantly did a good job of that! After playing a few songs the bad had to leave the stage and hand it over to Neck Deep.
"HAVE YOU NOTICED ME LATELY" and the answer to that lyric came from the crowd with a colossal scream of "I know I've been vaguely twist my words." Neck Deep had finally hit the stage a quarter of the way into the night and already had got the vibes pumping at its highest choosing Over and Over as their first official opening song was defiantly a wise choice as imminently they wasted no time with the build up beat but departed straight forward. The bad are made up of five members who are all pretty young in appearance but also musically. The energy was flowing as Ben (Lead vocalist) stepped off the stage and right up to the barrier into the crowd almost demolished by them where a large mob formed around him, making sure this his voice was not the only one to be heard that night.
Neck Deep aren't the average band who just get on stage and put on a show for the sake of it and sing chronologically but actually take the time to interact with their fans and let off a bit of their personality and experiences with the crowd, which makes them even more liable as a band too. This was the main thing that I loved about them as it added to their music also, they never stopped moving despite all the high spirited gestures they had made throughout the night, Neck Deep gave it their all. As it was my first time seeing them I did have high expectations on their performance, this didn't let me down, however their sound did slightly The sound coordination's with the vocals seemed to be a bit out of sync. Wither it being the instrumental playing too fast for the vocals or the beat not quite catching up to the lyrical state and movements but something seemed a little bit too fast forwarded and rushed, however this only lasted in the middle half f the set, the last half seemed to be perfectly intact.
Nevertheless Ben kept pushing his efforts forward to making the performance lively and upbeat, alternating between the stage and the crowd, expressing his words through his facial expressions and sound as he blew me away and the whole room too. "Tables turned" came on and I managed to catch the most amazing footage while the song played, due to the luck of the lights flashing like bad and Ben's interaction, I got what I needed for my music video. It was all thanks to the band for giving such an A* performance as their set did seem really short, everyone seemed to enjoy it with their faces turned into pictures of screams.Right towards the end the tension built right up to it's highest peak, while all the crowd surfers got into play and really did surf like mad, along with Ben, enjoying himself almost the waves, it was time to wash away Neck Deep and brig in Gnarwolves.
Topping the first two outstanding performance s was Birmingham's three piece pop punk band Gnarwolves, hitting the stage for the third round of madness. Now Gnarwolves are another one of my favourites to see, as the hype of them had risen over a couple of weeks and I wanted to experience it first hand at Tramlines. Oh man are they pop punk, Charlie (bassist) was first to come on stage, in a tye dye top, (which he is known for always wearing) joined by Max (drummer) and Thom (Lead vocalist and guitarist) The three boys whom two of them share DNA, hit the stage with a bang! Right away Thom was welcoming us all and asking us how we were doing, bigging up the bands who had just played before hand.The crowd went beyond wild as Gnarwolves started playing their first song, and even bigger mob of moshers formed right towards Thom chanting lyrics right back at his sweaty face. The vibes were all great, as no one stood still in the venue, even I found my self repeating words back as they had just left Thom's mouth, and recognised a few as heard on record, they were a sold 10/10 better live. Such an awesome atmosphere and such welcoming sounds, I felt right at home while they played. The set was put together beautifuly wit
h each song chosen at the right point to make dramatic effects, my favourites was History is Bunk, which was one of the opening songs, along with Coffee Shop which was their last.
Sad to see them leave the crowd keep demanding "GNARWOLVES CREW F*** YOU!" back and them in a friend banter before they disappeared completely off-stage.As soon as they left the stage so did most of the crowd, the pop punk, hardcore scene had moved away allowing a more older, hipster, mainstream crowd to form and await for Canterbury, the headlining band to perform.
However not everything was that different, as soon as they hit the Stage in their dim lit appearance, the voices of a hundred fans screamed their name as Luke began to sing.
The opening song was pretty much slow and clam which helped to ease the new audience into their music as it got them in the mood, as it wasn't too upbeat nor boring. This slow song then turned into a very fast past one which made sure that the audience was well awake and moving along to their beats and rhythm. Everything was in place this time, even the lights were perfectly matched in a clam red glow as "Calm Down" began to strum through the guitar. This was one of their most famous songs heard and every single voice could hear this as they repeated each lyric back, the build up of tension on this song was remarkable, as it kept chaining in tone and pitch as Luke's beautiful voice echoed the whole room in shivers.Although there was not much movement within their first few songs the band sure did make sure everyone was having a good time, and took a short break to explain who they were and where you can buy their albums with further links also for any unanswered questions before heading back to the music.
Their set lasted for 40 minutes which was not waste din the slightest, as Canterbury had disobediently grown as a band and gotten more versatile with their music genre and what they are capable of doing. Being front of the barrier I got to catch every little bit of reaction which came their way, as watching them perform showed me that they weren't as boring or just singing for the sake of a show but the desire and sensation which drove through their voice and movement of fingers along the guitars was significantly mesmerising, as they meant every single word they sang.
I was having a imaginary time, as I could feel myself losing my hands to their chats and connecting with them as I did recognise most of their songs, again a band who are equally as good on record as they are live! Canterbury played a mixture of their old songs combined with new ones to give the audience a real taste of what they are, which was boundless as everyone was just as enjoyable as the next. The night had ended with a goodbye and wishing to see you in the future from the band as they left the stage to a well satisfied audience.
Well that was only one of the days from Tramlines for you at one venue, there were plenty of other stages with two extra days to celebrate the great love of local music in Sheffield, See you around next year then?
