That’s a scary thought. I’ve finally reached the unnerving period of ‘limbo’ where I have no idea what I’ll be doing in a year, or even a months time! It’s also very exciting though, and all I can hope is that I manage to find a job in an exciting and creative industry to keep me busy.
This post is slightly different, more of an update on life really! The mountain of deadlines that third year held have distracted from blogging for a while, but they’re all finished now so I can get back into it.
Over the past year I’ve made one massive achievement – producing a music video by myself! The Fontaines (who have been introduced in a previous post) are a fab indie band from Sheffield. They let me follow them around with a camera for a while and the result was a fun but stressful few weeks and a successful (I think?!) debut music video for them. Have a look for yourself here.
Next on the agenda: I’d love to film another music video, so if anyone knows of any bands starting out who want some help then send them my way, I’m new to this too – so we could help each other!
I have a lot to look forward to now as well after managing to bag myself a Glastonbury ticket last year. I’m currently working my way through the line up to check out the many artists I haven’t listened to yet, so expect more posts on that soon!
Since being announced as one of this years Glastonbury headliners, the pressure is on for Kasabian to deliver something that is worthy of such a privilege. After a few listens to their fifth album, 48:13, named after the total running time and due for release on the 9th June, I would argue that they have succeeded in doing so.
The first single from the album ‘Eez-eh’, is a great, upbeat track and I’m pleased to say that it’s only one of many from this LP that I can imagine going down well at such a festival. Other standout tracks include ‘Bumblebeee’, with it’s chant provoking repeats of “I’m in ecstasy” alongside ‘Stevie,’ and ‘Doomsday’, with the band insisting “What you see is what you get with me”, fitting with what Sergio recently said about how they had aimed to be more direct and honest with this album.
It is clear that Kasabian wanted to do something different this time around, with much less emphasis on their guitars and an increasing amount of indie disco style music creeping in to what before was more traditional rock.
Contrasting with the range of upbeat tracks however are those such as ‘Glass’, which starts off with a more mournful tone – with pleads of “save me from this world” and ending with a young persons spoken words that question where life is leading us with lyrics like “Are you running around in a circle, going nowhere fast? Cause when you look at the man in the mirror, he’s made of nothing but glass.”
Explodes, despite the title is another of the slower tracks. It has the potential for some excitement to kick in in places but it just doesn’t happen, the trippy sounds build up, but then bam, it’s back to more of the same, resulting in an ironically unexplosive track.
Ending the album is another risk taken by the band, which certainly pays off. S.P.S is an Oasis-esque ballad which would be the perfect addition to their encore, as Serge sings “Didn’t we all have such a good time? Didn’t we all have the greatest night, even though we know its wrong, I know there’s time for one more song.”
It was only when I was browsing through last years Leeds Festival lineup that I thought to myself, why have I never listened to Frank Turner? So I checked out his albums on Spotify and soon enough I was hooked.
Following a brilliant set at Leeds, he soon announced his next UK tour so without a second thought I brought two tickets for myself and whoever agreed to come along with me.
So now, 6 months on, I can safely say he did not disappoint. Myself along with newly converted Frank Turner fan – my dad, arrived at the Nottingham Capital FM arena at around 7pm and it was filling up quickly with a mixture of young and old faces and him certainly not feeling out of place.
While it’s not like me to stay out of the crowd, my dad didn’t fancy pushing to the front and I couldn’t see a thing at the back. So we waited until the end of the first song and ran up to sit in 2 of the rare free seats. Thankfully the owners of these seats didn’t question us, just looked confused when they arrived 5 songs in and sat a couple of rows behind… (should have arrived on time shouldn’t ya) so from then on we had a brilliant view.
Frank kicked off his set with the energetic Photosynthesis; a great choice to set the atmosphere for the evening with the whole arena letting loose and joining in to sing “And I won’t sit down, And I won’t shut up, And most of all I will not grow up” and from then on it simply got better and better.
Frank and his band The Sleeping Souls went on to play a 90 minute set of a variety of songs from his five albums. He performed a large chunk of his most recent LP ‘Tape Deck Heart’ with standout tracks being Plain Sailing Weather, The Way I Tend To Be and Losing Days, alongside a mixture from older albums such as clear crowd favourite If Ever I Stray.
He proudly stated halfway through the gig that it was his second biggest headline show ever, and despite having faced criticism for playing arenas he hit back via twitter with a witty “We’ve sold five rock cities of tickets for tonight. Seems more important to me that people can get in to the show.” So you go Frank, because I certainly would have been gutted had I missed out on this.
Regardless of the fact he is now selling out arenas, Frank clearly hasn’t forgotten about the fans that have been around since his days performing at the Rescue Rooms, as he treats them not only to older tracks such as I Still Believe but also lesser known songs (but no less brilliant) like Wisdom Teeth and The Ballad of Me and My Friends.
Towards the end of the set he challenged the crowd to what he described as “a crowd participation triathlon” which in other words was a combination of singing, clapping and jumping enough to beat the previous nights crowd, so for the duration of Recovery the whole room was bouncing. This was soon toned down a notch as he followed it with a passionate performance of Broken Piano, with the audience attentive as ever and holding on to every word.
Ending the show on a high, back to the stage he came for an encore of I Still Believe, followed by Four Simple Words; in my opinion the perfect song to end on, giving audiences the chance to participate in what may have began as a heartfelt singalong by tonight’s 10,000 strong crowd, but soon turned into their last song to go crazy to, with moshing down on the floor and a good boogie at the very least if you were up in the seats.
All in all, for a man who “didn’t really write these songs to be played in a room this size and shape,” he has certainly pulled it off and there’s nothing to suggest he won’t continue to do so for a very long time.
After first hearing of Tom Odell when he won the Critics’ choice award at the BRITs earlier this year, I just had to have a listen to the few songs he had released because if the past few winners are anything to go by, they get majorly successful in a very short space of time. Think the likes of Adele, Jessie J and Emile Sande…
Now that his album is out I think Tom Odell is set to do exactly the same. His debut album ‘Long Way Down’ was initially set for release in April, but he made the decision to delay it until June 24th. This decision was said to prevent it leaking with Tom having said “These days having different release dates would mean the album may end up getting leaked which is not fair on all of you who paid for it,” denying claims that it was because his single ‘Hold Me’ failed to make it to the top 40. Whatever the reason though; it certainly paid off because it’s been announced today that it made number 1.
And in my opinion it’s a thoroughly well deserved chart position. His latest single ‘Another love’ did much better too, reaching number 10 in the single charts. So it seems he is well on his way to gaining the recognition he deserves, especially after a brilliant performance at Glastonbury earlier today too which was shown on BBC and will soon be online at BBC Glastonbury.
The album itself has faced some tough criticism from the likes of NME – who rated it a measly 0/10 and described it as bland, resulting in an angry Mr Odell calling up the magazine to defend his son. Personally, I disagree with the criticism. I’m a big fan of emotional ballad style songs and this album certainly didn’t disappoint in the way of those.
It’s definitely one of those albums where with every listen it gets better. The more angsty tracks such as ‘Hold me’, are sure to make you feel his emotion in a totally different way to those such as ‘Supposed to be,’ one of my other personal favourites from the album; which is much slower and tells the story of a broken heart.
‘Grow Old With Me’, has been described by some as a very Chris Martin-esque style track, but that can only be seen as a complement surely? It’s a great opener for the album and sets the mood from the get go, starting off as a near acapella ballad to showcase his voice (and piano playing skills) and gradually building up the pace throughout. Followed by ‘Hold Me’ where we see another side to his voice in a more upbeat and passion filled track. In the next track which is his latest single ‘Another love’, Odell manages to let his emotion come through without the dramatics, the intensity but simplicity of the video alongside it helping it to do so.
All in all it might not be the most lively album you’ll ever hear, but when you just want to relax with a decent easy listening album by an undeniably talented vocalist, you really can’t go wrong with ‘Long Way Down’.
Tom Odell’s tour of the UK this October is on sale now – so grab tickets while you can, and while they’re at a bargain price of just £13.
After discovering a few new local bands I felt I should mention some musicians I can’t get enough of lately, outside of Sheffield. I have a pretty diverse taste in music so don’t be confused that you’re seeing rap followed by rock, etc…
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis Seriously can’t get enough of these guys at the minute. The new track ‘Can’t Hold Us‘ is one of the catchiest songs I’ve heard in ages, and while it may start off too fast for me to sing along to, the chorus certainly isn’t and I can already picture the chants being shouted back to them at festivals. It’s an upbeat, feel good song and definitely one that I imagine will be huge this summer. I’ve only given their album The Heist a few listens at the minute, but so far so good. Check it out on Spotify.
Fall Out Boy ARE BACK. After disappearing off the face of the music world for quite a while, they’re back with a brand new album Save Rock And Roll. And it doesn’t disappoint. A lot of bands when they go off and sneakily write a new album come back with a completely different sound, but this is simply Fall Out Boy doing what they do best, with their alternative/pop punk sound. They’ve done a bunch of collaborations too, with the likes of Big Sean and even Elton John making appearances, with the latter joining the band for the album’s title track.
I never thought I’d get the chance to see Fall Out Boy live again after I did in 2008 (god that makes me feel really old) but I’ve just splashed out on a Leeds festival ticket so they are definitely on my ‘who to see’ list.
Imagine Dragons
It was a only in the Easter holidays when I was sat with the music channels on my TV and ‘Radioactive’ came on, and I knew I’d heard it before and really liked it so took note of the band singing it. Since then I’ve been listening to their album Night Visions non-stop and I’ve realised just how good they are. Full of festival ready singalongs such as ‘On top of the world’ these guys are gonna find themselves with an even bigger fanbase in no time.
Toning it down slightly for slower tracks like ‘Bleeding out’ and my personal favourite ‘Demons’, the bands front man Dan Reynolds certainly fails to disappoint with a voice like that.
Of Monsters and Men Their 2012 ‘My Head Is An Animal’ album is full of infectiously catchy choruses such as those in ‘Little Talks’ and ‘Mountain Sound’ that will instantly put you in a good mood. It’s also really nice to hear a band with a combination of female and male vocals too which is what stood out to me. Whatever music you’re in to, they have such a different but easy listening sound that I think they’d be hard to dislike. With such a wide selection of instruments to create such unique, melodic sounds and their contrasting vocals its hard to compare them to anyone else.
I might be a little slow jumping on the bandwagon with these, my reason for thinking so being that ‘Little Talks’ already has over 58 million views on YouTube, but if you haven’t listened to them before than I definitely recommend you do.
2013 is definitely going to be the year for this band, with them playing loads of gigs over the summer including V Festival and Glastonbury.
Okay so I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve been a McFly fan since they started out nearly 10 years ago. I’ve seen them live an uncountable number of times, and loved every minute. But I can safely say last night was the best fun I’ve ever had at a gig of theirs.
This was due to a number of factors. The fact I love their music, yes. The fact we were stood right at the front of the stage, definitely! And partially down to the vodka too I guess, which cost an extortionate price of £5.50, I repeat: FIVE POUNDS FIFTY. To our annoyance we also found that not once were our bags, or barely even our tickets checked once in the venue, so we could have sneakily brought our own drinks in for free.
But whatever, this was my view for the evening, so I certainly wasn’t complaining…
Being this close, we could have been conscious of the boys being able to see us singing our hearts out and dancing around like loons, but that didn’t stop us. And although we didn’t quite get dragged up on to the stage, or the marriage proposals that myself and Lottie were after, between us we did manage to get a plectrum plus Dougie’s water bottle. Well we stole that from the stage, cos THAT’S HOW CLOSE WE WERE.
So, I should get down to mentioning the gig itself. The tour was called ‘Memory Lane’, after the song from their 2005 album Wonderland, which is literally one of my ultimate favourite songs of theirs. And although at first I thought, oh yay another greatest hits tour, with this year being their 10th anniversary as a band it seems pretty fitting.
Support came from a band called ‘The Vamps‘, we didn’t manage to catch them as they were on quite early but I’ve been told they were good. From looking on their YouTube page I can see why they were chosen to support McFly, they’re young, alright looking and they’ve even done a mega cringey version of McFly’s song ‘That Girl’, amongst various other pop covers including One Direction and Taylor Swift.
McFly came on at an unusually early time of around 8.45, but maybe it came round quicker due to the nights ‘host’ Ant Brant (or as they called him ‘Mr Antastic’) keeping the audience entertained for a short while. I say entertained lightly, because sorry but he’s really not very funny. Now if anyone remembers the band V (around back in the early McFly days and sang ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears’, he was a member.
The show began with an acapella version of ‘Memory lane’, but soon enough the curtains dropped to reveal their impressive stage set up, the distinctive intro to ‘That Girl’ kicked in, and the whole place went nuts.
The set list all in all was great. On top of all of their greatest hits including ‘5 Colours In Her Hair’ and ‘Obviously’, they were sure to please their older fans by performing some album favourites that haven’t been played live for a long time. One of the best parts of the set for me was when they played my favourite 3 songs from the radio:ACTIVE album: ‘Corrupted’, ‘Nowhere Left To Run’ and ‘Lies’.
They then toned it down for a short while, with Tom putting down his guitar and moving over to the piano as they performed a brilliant stripped down version of ‘I’ll be OK’, followed by the ballad; ‘Bubblewrap’.
Not wanting to let their audience get bored, naturally after the band had performed ‘Smile’ we were greeted with Danny stopping the show to request various hats to be brought out for each member. Ant Brant returned to the stage, the sax players even stepped down to join the band, and they performed a cheerful medley of covers consisting of ‘It’s Alright’, ‘Don’t worry Be Happy’, and ‘Y.M.C.A’.
The show was soon to come to an end, with Tom announcing before they played the full version of ‘Memory Lane’ that it was their last song. For Dougie to then pick up his setlist and inform everyone that it wasn’t, it was in fact just the encore and that they would soon be returning to play three more. But in all fairness everybody knew that anyway, what band doesn’t do an encore?
Off they went for a minute or so, and as they came back and Tom picked up his pink ukulele we knew what song was coming next. After a good sing and dance to ‘Love Is Easy’ with it’s catchy chorus and ‘do do do do dooo’s’, it was time for ‘All About You’. They then went on to end their 1 hour 45 minute set with what was definitely the best and most heartfelt singalong of the night: ‘The Heart Never Lies’. All in all I couldn’t have enjoyed it more, and whatever your opinion is of bands like McFly, you really can’t deny their talent once you’ve seen them live. Even my dad would agree there, I only ever had to beg him once to accompany me in seeing them live (when I was 11) and he still happily came along again!
I took a few video’s, YouTube destroys the quality of them a fair bit, oh and sorry about our singing haha…
Ask people to name a band from Sheffield and I can pretty much guarantee they will say the Arctic Monkeys. Not without reason of course, as they quite clearly are one of the biggest acts to come from here. But sometimes you just want to hear some new music so I’ve been hunting around online and as a result have found a few new Sheffield based bands that I’d like to recommend.
And the best thing about new musicians is that their gigs are pretty much always at student friendly prices. Even Bastille only cost us £10, and they now all of a sudden have a number one album and single that beat the likes of Emile Sande and Bruno Mars. This makes it highly likely that their tickets will cost around triple the price by this time next year, so if you can get in there and see bands when they’re just starting out, you could save a lot.
Polkadodge
Polkadodge are a 4 piece band I recently discovered on Facebook. When searching local gig listings or venue pages looking for support acts, the name popped up a few times so I thought I’d have a listen.
The group of Sheffield lads have an easy listening, pop punk type sound and I’d say if you’re a fan of bands such as Kids in glass houses or All time low, then these are for you. Their catchy choruses and chants of woah oh oh oh’s in songs like ‘Catfish’, are sure to have you hooked and create a great atmosphere at a live gig.
They can often be found performing at various venues around Sheffield and are also supporting local band ‘Bromheads’ tomorrow night (25th April) at Leadmill, whereticketsare just £8.
They are gathering a good following through social networking, and have recently been signed to Sound-Hub Records. They’ve posted a few songs on their Soundcloudpage, and a clip of the bands latest recording called ‘Borderline’ can be heard there and pre-ordered now through their Facebook. So if you want to hear about their latest gigs and music keep an eye out on there too.
Liberty Ship
I was just browsing the Leadmill Facebook page when I spotted that these guys are currently on tour supporting King Charles and as a big fan of his I thought they might be worth checking out.
Turns out I was correct, as these guys, coming from Sheffield have a really great indie-pop sound to them. The first song I listened to, ‘Further’ is a slower one, but it still managed to draw me in straight away with the lead singer having one of those voices you could just listen to all day. They have a really refreshing and easy listening sound that could appeal to everyone. And without actually having many songs up online at the minute they have still managed to gather a huge fanbase on their Facebook and YouTube pages, most likely through the vast amount of gigs they’ve done all around the country.
If you like what you’ve heard, be sure to check them out onFacebook to hear about their gigs and new music.
Take The Seven
Take The Seven are a 5-piece alternative rock band based around Chesterfield, North Derbyshire and Sheffield.
On checking out Take The Seven’s soundcloud page, I found that although they might be slightly heavier than the other bands I’ve mentioned so far, they’ve actually done some really good covers of Adele and Taylor Swift. Their version of ‘Set fire to the rain’ exposed them to a huge audience and really showcases the vocalist’s talent.
Despite having only been formed for under two years, they’ve managed to grab support slots with acts such as Senses Fail and My Passion, and their debut 7-track EP ‘Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious’ is out now and can be heard on www.taketheseven.com.
They are also playing at Sheffield o2 Academy soon, tickets for which can be found here (and they’re only £6!) as well as various gigs around Chesterfield.
The Natterjacks
Ok, so I actually only first listened to these guys around an hour ago and I’m already hooked. As ‘Cold Sets In’ began playing I found myself instantly being reminded of Mumford and Sons, what with the acoustic but fast paced and catchy guitar intro. It could definitely be said that they maybe sound a bit too similar… but I’m sure they wouldn’t class that as an insult, and these guys can certainly pull it off as the vocals are amazing. It’s hard to believe that they started out doing pop punk covers before getting their inspiration from such a different style of music, but they definitely made the right choice as they suit it perfectly. They have a lot of songs up already on their soundcloud page, so have a listen.
They were also recently featured on BBC introducing, performing 3 of their tracks and have managed to reach nearly 150,000 views in just two months. And the greatest thing I’ve found about this band is that their live vocals are 100% as great as in their recorded tracks. In my opinion, definitely my best musical discovery of the day and I’ll certainly be keeping up with them on Facebook and trying to make it to a local gig, especially after sadly realising they actually played in Sheffield’s Lava Lounge just last week!
Some of you may have heard about Sheffield’s annual music festival Tramlines. It’s now in it’s fifth year, and for just £6 a day from the 19th – 21st July you can access around 70 venues across the city hosting 100’s of musicians from all genres.
There was some controversy over the festival charging at all, as it’s usually completely free but due to the council’s funding cuts of around £30 million overall, they had no choice but to charge a small amount in order for the festival to run.
After last year having the likes of Alt-J and We Are Scientists, the excitement is building for the locals of Sheffield to find out who they have lined up for 2013.
Today they have announced the first set of acts as you can see in the poster, and the rest of the lineup so far can be found here.
The lineup so far features Duke Dumont, who are currently in the charts at number 4 with their single with A.M.E, ‘Need U’, which 3 weeks ago entered the top 40 at number 1.
A lot of the acts are only just becoming known in the music scene so if you haven’t heard of many, it could be worth checking them out because this time last year that’s where Alt-J were; and now look at them.
So if you’re into the festival scene but your student budget isn’t allowing you to attend the likes of Glastonbury or Leeds, then get yourselves back to Sheffield for Tramlines. Half of the festival fun is about the drunken antics with your friends, so presuming you have your student accommodation for over the summer it’ll work out to be a fun and cheap way to do something different with your weekend, as well as discovering some new music.
To keep up to date with new announcements and ticket information, follow them on their twitter page: @tramlines.
Here’s another guide but this time I want to focus on the live music aspect of Sheffield’s nightlife. From a young age I’ve enjoyed going to gigs as often as possible but I’m finding this a lot harder now that I’m trying to live off a student budget. So I’ve written this to give you all an idea about the various live music venues you can visit and what type of thing you can expect to find there, with some being a lot cheaper and more accessible than if you’re used to just seeing bands at big arenas.
The Leadmill
The place where Sheffield’s most famous band began.
Yes the Arctic Monkeys started out by playing gigs to a few hundred people, and soon they became popular enough to have since played both the arena and stadium here in Sheffield. Leadmill is a fab venue for up and coming bands, but also some pretty well known ones such as Sheffield’s very own Reverend & The makers, The Pigeon Detectives and many more.
UP & COMING:
Bastille 19th March –
Check out my review of the gig here.
O2 Academy
I managed to see Professor Green for £5 here during freshers which was such a good night. The size is perfect, it has a brilliant atmosphere but is still small enough for you to be able to see from wherever you stand. Prices vary but the O2 quite often have well known guests at their Propaganda club night which means it’s the standard £4-5 entry and only £1 drinks.
UP & COMING:
Bowling for soup – 17th October 2013
Tom Odell – 30th October 2013
Sheffield City Hall
This venue is home to a variety of entertainment; from musicians to comedians. With a capacity of just over 2000, it’s small enough to feel involved but bigger than your average nightclub.
I will also be attending a McFly concert at the end of April so will later be telling you all about that! From front row may I add. (don’t laugh, I bet you’d all sing along if 5 colours in her hair came on.)
Check out my review here.
UP & COMING:
Leona Lewis 3rd May 2013
Bill Bailey 6th May 2013
The motorpoint arena accommodates up to 13000 people and is home to the bigger acts, having myself seen bands such as My Chemical Romance perform there in the past and they regularly host performances from the likes of Olly Murs, The Script and One Direction.
UP & COMING: One Direction – 13th + 14th April 2013 that’s this weekend, somebody come with me PLEASE? I‘m genuinely not joking…
Don Valley Stadium
Sadly, Sheffield’s biggest venue has been just this week announced as closing down. Often know as the training ground for Sheffield’s Jessica Ennis, it has also had it’s fair share of major musicians performing there such as (again) the Arctic Monkeys and hosted large events like Sheffield Hallam’s Party in the park.
West Street Live
Interested in finding out about some new musicians in the area? Or you are one yourself needing somewhere to play? West Street Live is your place. They are open every night and entry is FREE and they welcome local and national musicians of every genre. They also offer a variety of unique drinks from what I’ve heard at very good prices.
The Viper Rooms Similarly to West Street Live, The Viper Rooms offers big opportunities for small up & coming artists, mainly on a Wednesday when they have a variety of different performers each week, from catchy pop musicians to soulful songwriters.
Plug Plug isn’t just for the club nights, it also offers a wide range of live shows too. A few weeks back they had Chase & Status performing there and during freshers week I saw Sam & The Womp. (Who? I hear you ask, but you all remember that ‘Bom bom bom’ song…)
Now that his album is out I think Tom Odell is set to do exactly the same. His debut album ‘Long Way Down’ was initially set for release in April, but he made the decision to delay it until June 24th. This decision was said to prevent it leaking with Tom having said “These days having different release dates would mean the album may end up getting leaked which is not fair on all of you who paid for it,” denying claims that it was because his single ‘Hold Me’ failed to make it to the top 40. Whatever the reason though; it certainly paid off because it’s been announced today that it made number 1.
Alt-J and We Are Scientists, the excitement is building for the locals of Sheffield to find out who they have lined up for 2013.
Shuffle 