Sunday 15th June, 2025
I’ve been going to the Leadmill in the heart of Sheffield’s bustling city centre since I was a chubby, lovelorn teenager. Now, as a chubby, married (supposed) adult, the Leadmill and I have reached the end of the road. Following the announcement that Sheffield’s most iconic venue is due to close in 2025 after a highly publicised and long-running legal battle, several farewell shows have been announced with Miles Kane due to close the Leadmill for good at the end of June. Now, I’ve seen Milburn singer Joe Carnall many times over the years, with many of those gigs taking place at the Leadmill, and so it was his intimate, acoustic matinee show that felt like the most fitting way for both Joe and I to bow out…
Arriving at the venue before the gig was a surreal experience. And not just because I was fighting off one of the all time most epic hangovers of my life. I found myself wandering from room to room before the show, taking photos, glancing wistfully at various points of interest. That corner is where my mate took his top off but then was too drunk to get it back on properly so instead he spent the rest of the night stumbling about with one nipple triumphantly bared. That other corner is where I met comedian Tim Key and he signed a set of playing cards for me with the legend ‘Merry Christmas’ despite the fact that it was March at the time. That’s where I stood and sang my heart out to Jimmy Eat World and Reytons and the Dandy Warhols and White Lies and Slow Club and on and on. That’s where my mate and I fought back tears as The Crookes played their final ever show and absolutely smashed it out of the park. Jesus. I talk to a woman who tells me she met her now husband of 20 years on the Leadmill dancefloor. This is a place that is so much more than bricks and mortar. It’s love and hope and friendship and a stage that still bares the scars of the blood, sweat and tears of the acts that have graced it over the years and decades. And now, it’s time for one last dance.
Carnall takes to the stage to the sound of The Housemartins and ‘Caravan of Love’. A fitting beginning and a nod to one of Sheffield’s most famous sons, Paul Heaton. “I’ve been coming here since I was a teenager”, begins Carnall, “so it seems fitting to start with a song about being 17”, The song, of course, is Milburn track ’17’, and it sounds suitably massive with the Sheffield audience in typically good voice. ‘Cheshire Cat Smile’ follows and when Carnall sings “So it has come to an end” there is an almost audible collective sigh. It is clear that this is going to be a gig in which every line in every song carries the weight of history on its shoulders. It’s a heavy burden, but Carnall is up to the task. He also has a few friends to help him. Longstanding collaborators Adam Crofts (formerly of The Crookes) and Ed Cosens (Reverend and the Makers) provide support on keys and guitar respectively, while fellow Sheffield musicians Tom Rowley and support act Harriet Rose also appear – the former on a cover of The Strokes ‘Under Control’ and the latter on Good Cop Bad Cop favourite ‘Running Away With the Circus’. Before all that, however, Carnall regales us with a story about his first gig at the Leadmill. The Bluetones back in 2005. A cover of classic single ‘Slight Return’ follows. The Sheffield songsmith does this throughout the gig, interweaving his own personal history with that of the famous venue along with the shared history that we all carry. He recounts a formative Libertines gig and then follows that with Milburn’s “Libertines rip-off” (his words not mine) ‘Storm in a Teacup’ that segues into a cover of Libs track ‘Time for Heroes’. He tells a hilarious story about the time all the members of Milburn along with the Arctic Monkeys attended a gig by The Kooks at the Leadmill. Halfway through, Turner turned to him, and with his typical acerbic wit commented, “This lot are fucking shit”.
Carnall plays a career spanning set with plenty of stuff from Good Cop Bad Cop as well as Milburn, of course, and The Book Club (he is joined by Patrick Conwill for a lovely acoustic rendition of ‘What We Did on the Landing’), and we are also treated to a song from Carnall’s recent musical How Could I Forget? with vocals from cast member Gerry Fletcher.
Perhaps the highlight of the show, however, is a gorgeous cover of ‘This Boy’ by The Beatles in which Carnall belts out the Lennon vocal and in doing so reminds everyone of how good his voice is. Cellist Lucy Revis accompanies the band for this song and a few others which results in a more complete, lush sound that adds an extra layer of gravitas to the whole thing.
The first part of the set closes out with a raucous and emotional rendition of Milburn classic ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ before Carnall and his gang return to the stage with a heartfelt rendition of ‘Time Crisis’ from that first excellent Good Cop Bad Cop record. It’s a song about the power of music. Quite.
We are treated to one final cover in the shape of ‘Nobody Does It Better’ (dedicated to all the dads for Father’s Day) before traditional set closer ‘What You Could’ve Won’ tears the whole place down. I look around halfway through this song, high into the rafters, into the darkest corners that the Leadmill has to offer. It’s astonishing to think of how much of Sheffield’s personality was moulded in two small rooms, an even smaller room and some grubby toilets. This gig is but one small chapter in the book of a venue that touched many lives, but it’s a chapter that I will cherish until I too go the way of The Leadmill.
I’d like to conclude this hysterical diatribe with a quote from Ernest Hemingway if you’ll indulge me:
’We can’t ever go back to old things or try and get the “old kick” out of something or find things the way we remembered them. We have them as we remember them and they are fine and wonderful and we have to go on and have other things because the old things are nowhere except in our minds now.’
Goodnight, sweet prince. Sheffield Leadmill. Over and out.
