Tramline Festival Day One live review

Tramlines Festival 2024
Hillsborough Park, Sheffield
26th-28th July 2024

This year the sun gods finally shone on Sheffield’s biggest festival as fans of all ages enjoyed the music after last year’s mudfest. Paul Clarke slapped on some factor 50 to explore this family friendly event in the shadow of Hillsborough football ground.

Last year torrential rain turned the Tramlines three day festival in this quiet North Sheffield park into a modern version of the Somme, but thankfully this time the weather gods were on our side with 40000 people determined to have fun in the sun.

On a stroll around the site, the first thing that struck is how family friendly this intimate festival is, as kids in ear defenders nestled on their parent’s shoulders and tweens shot round the site. There were plenty of moody teenagers ready to check out the next cool band on the Leadmill stage, as their parents staked their places in front of the main Sarah Nulty stage for the big names.

It’s Yorkshire y’ah know, so Tramlines has a relaxed, bullshit free atmosphere where punters took advantage of the many bars, but not to excess as many of them were juggling hedonism and parenting. Tramlines had always been a festival that balances giving newer acts a shot with the need to pull in big names to get people through the gates, especially when brass is tight.

First up on the main stage was Coach Party who’d driven up from the Isle of Wight for their big break. Led by personable vocalist Jess Eastwood, they overcame an understandably shaky start, and the chugging indie All I Wanna Do Is Hate suggested their upcoming album might be one to watch.

Still on the main stage, I have to be honest and say I was dreading Miles Kane as his solo stuff away from The Last Shadow Puppets had left me a bit indifferent, but he well and truly proved me wrong with a rocking set. When he strutted on stage in a boxer’s cape with his name emblazoned on the back, white flares and a Travis Bickle style haircut you could see he was up for it. Riff-heavy Better Than That set his stall out, and Inhaler was a banger as he worked hard to get the mid afternoon crowd behind him. By Come Closer, he was pulling some rock star guitar poses before dedicating Don’t Forget Who You Are to his mum and aunt who came down from the Wirral. Miles won this musical bout by a clear knockout.

Then it was party time as disco diva Sophie Ellis-Bextor exploded onstage with some spectacularly uninhibited ‘mum dancing’ clad in a glittery leotard with a multicoloured fringe and heels. The Tramlines bill does incline to guitar bands, but it’s not all serious indie rock and Ellis-Bextor’s show appeals to all ages, from a mum and her young daughter with glitter all over their faces to a gang of football lads gleefully singing along. Her uptempo cover of Cher’s Take Me Home was a blast, but Ellis-Bextor really knows how to work a crowd as she encouraged the whole field to join in the cheesy dance routines on Hypnotised, which they did with great gusto.

It’s often forgotten that Ellis-Bextor had been a vocalist on many club classics, and as the opening riff to Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) struck up you could probably have heard the singalong in Rotherham. A totally fun set ended with Murder On The Dancefloor that had been back in the charts because of that scene in Saltburn, but no-one gave a toss about that because they were simply loving how the communal live experience can lift the soul.

After a wander round the site, including a blast of Shaun Williamson’s Barrioke , that attracted a raucous crowd up for a mass singalong, it was back to the main stage for Bombay Bicycle Club who seem to be on every festival bill at the moment, but it was a genuine mystery to me how they were so high up the bill. You’d think by playing lots of festivals they’d know how to get a big crowd going, but sadly not, as their tame efforts wafted away in the light summer breeze before a listless crowd.

After that there was an urgent need for some musical palate cleaning, and thankfully Soft Play were on hand down at T’Other Stage for some rowdy new school punk rock. Playing in a tent was the right place for this visceral duo as their intensity would have been lost on the main stage, and the kids were clearly loving it.Punk’s Dead set out their manifesto as shirtless Issac Holman belted out the angry lyrics as he thrashed his drum kit and Laurie Vincent cranked out the riffs.

Issac is Typing…is about Holman’s struggles with OCD and ADHD as they pulled off the neat trick of somehow capturing musically the challenges those conditions can bring, and John Wick was inspired by Vincent’s obsession with the ultra-violent movie franchise when they were on tour. Holman says when they played Tramlines in 2012 about 12 people turned out, and they even went a bit mellow as Vincent got his mandolin out for Everything And Nothing. Soft Play now have a tricky choice to make as they are now a main stage band, but playing bigger stages will mean they lose some of the manic intensity in their set.

Paolo Nutini came on the main stage bellowing into a Seventies house phone with more than a hint of Bono at his messianic best about him, and there was a moment when you thought he might not be a headline act. Thankfully he soon settled down for an intelligent set of moody newer numbers and some oldies from his rich back catalogue. Scream (Funk My Life Up) had a lovely Stones/Primals groove as Nutini and his slick band warmed up before he strapped on an acoustic for Acid Eyes.

There was more than a hint of Jim Kerr as Nutiti swayed round the stage during Radio, and an acoustic outing for his early top five hit Last Request showcased the Scotsman’s gift for cleverly constructed bittersweet ballads, as the audience notably perked up after a subdued start.

Headline acts are paid to deliver the hits, and it was probably to Nutini’s chagrin that the early stuff went down best. Jenny Don’t Be Hasty from his quintuple platinum debut These Streets earned a huge cheer, especially when it morphed into a touching version of Teenage Kicks, before the volume really went up for a jaunty version of New Shoes complete with an Eighties sax break.

Candy remained a fan favourite, and the band stopped playing as the crowd took up the chorus, which was the moment he won over any doubters. Nutini introduced Iron Sky as a plea to ‘rise above’ all the recent shit as hands shot up across the whole site, and my teenage daughter described it as ‘euphoric and uplifting’. Paolo Nutini probably isn’t an obvious headliner, but he did engage with the crowd and, thanks to a decent amount of poppier songs from his early days, managed to pull it off.

Super early bird tickets for Tramlines 2025 go on sale on Friday 2nd August at 12pm priced at £89.50 + booking fee when it returns to Hillsborough Park from Friday 25 to Sunday 27 July. Early Bird tickets sell out quickly so advice from the organisers is to sign up for priority access at www.tramlines.org.uk before 2nd August. 

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Words by Paul Clarke, you can see his author profile here

Paolo Nutini photo courtesy of Tramlines Festival 2024 and Carolina Faruolo