Sunday 24th July 2023
I’ve been attending UK festivals since Ozzfest 2001. As a result of this, I’ve seen my fair share of bad weather over the years. I’ve never seen anything to compare to Tramlines 2023, however. It was both literally and metaphorically the perfect storm. Bring your wellington boots…
It’s an early start down at the Main Stage for Liverpool rockers The Zutons. The band lean heavily on their first two albums and Dave McCabe’s psychedelic noodlings sound great despite the driving rain and ominously worsening mud. ‘Zuton Fever’ serves as a perfect introduction and from there ‘Dirty Dancehall’, ‘Don’t Ever Think (Too Much)’ and ‘Pressure Point’ keep the party going with Abi Harding’s imperious saxophone driving the band on. ‘Valerie’ closes things out save for a reprise of ‘Zuton Fever’ complete with full band introductions. Great stuff.
When the weather is this bad, the day will inevitably revert to peaks and troughs. The trick is to enjoy the peaks when they come and bravely battle against the troughs. Sugababes was a low point for me. Not the music itself but the circumstances. The friends I had arrived with had left and I was waiting for my next lot of companions to turn up and so for half an hour or so, I was just an old guy on his own watching Sugababes. An odd situation. The pop survivors were good at least with the OG lineup of Mutya, Keisha and Siobhan seemingly delighted to be performing together again. You forget how many good songs the pop trio had and tracks like ‘Freak Like Me’, ‘Round Round’ and ‘Push the Button’ sound great when performed with a live band – it is notable that they attract easily the biggest crowd of the day.
It is at this point that the rain really dons its pipe and slippers and settles in for the night. Moving between stages becomes a real slog but we make it to the T’Other Stage to see Black Honey and the Brighton four-piece deliver a well-received set with lead vocalist Izzy Phillips on top form culminating in a superb performance of ‘I Like the Way You Die’. Wunderhorse are up next and they justify their status as one of the UK’s most exciting bands. Despite sounding like they should have been signed to Subpop in the ’90s, they bring a freshness and a passion to their songs that can’t be denied. An extended version of ‘Leader of the Pack’ is the perfect set opener and from there, it’s all gold with a gorgeous and stirring version of ‘Purple’ leading into a rapturously received ‘Teal’ – the latter of which is already an instant classic.
By this point, it has been raining solidly for hours and Hillsborough Park has come to resemble a swamp. Music takes a backseat to the more appealing objective of staying dry. Happily, this leads us to The Mariachis bringing the house down over at The Open Arms providing a Latino take on pop classics by the Human League and Ritchie Valens. It’s weirdly excellent.
The Beths are up next and despite the fact that they all look knackered due to this being the conclusion of a gruelling touring schedule they still knock it out of the park. It’s a shame the mud is so bad because the New Zealand band’s high tempo and hook-laden pop rock is perfect festival music and tracks like ‘Future Me Hates Me’ and ‘Silence is Golden’ fill the Leadmill Stage with soaring choruses and good vibes. I’m sad not to hear ‘Little Death’ but ‘Happy Unhappy’ is the perfect set closer in its place and this is a relief because I’d dragged various people with me to see The Beths on a promise that they would deliver and Elizabeth Stokes and her band don’t disappoint.
Paul Heaton is a Sheffield lad and under normal circumstances would have made for a perfect Sunday night Tramlines headliner. But these are not normal circumstances. The mud is ankle-deep everywhere and huge swathes of the field at the Main Stage are genuinely inaccessible. For the few hardy souls that remain, however, Heaton delivers a very special set indeed.
Drawing from The Housemartins, The Beautiful South and his latter work with Jacqui Abbot (replaced tonight by Rianne Downey), Heaton delivers a career-spanning set and he remains one of the most accomplished and engaging frontmen working today. ‘Old Red Eyes is Back’ is as sad and dramatic as ever, ‘A Little Time’ still hits hard and Downey does an incredible job on a raucously received ‘Rotterdam’. In 2020, Downey uploaded an acoustic cover of ‘Rotterdam’ recorded from her bedroom and so her journey to performing it now in front of thousands is genuinely heartening. The hits keep coming with the by-now accepting crowd dancing in the mud to ‘Good as Gold (Stupid as Mud)’, Perfect 10′ and ‘You Keep It All In’.
Heaton finds time to intone that ‘It’s actually glorious sunshine at Bramall Lane’, a nod to his lifelong love of Sheffield United, before introducing the rest of the band. He does this by providing their name, their instrument and their football team. The guitarist’s choice of Leeds United is roundly booed across Hillsborough Park. And rightly so. The set closes out with personal highlight ‘Song for Whoever’, followed by ‘Happy Hour’ and ‘Don’t Marry Her’ – a barnstorming conclusion that provides a tantalizing glimpse into what this set could have been had the weather not intervened.
‘Caravan of Love’ closes out the set, the night and indeed the whole festival. It’s a song about unity and togetherness and pride and it’s perfect for the circumstances. And it is during this song that it becomes clear that despite the mud, despite the rain, when live music is this good, everything else fades into insignificance. If nothing else, Paul Heaton at Tramlines 2023 is a set that I will never forget.
See you next year.