With so much made of the city’s rich pop music heritage, isn’t Sheffield big enough to support an annual outdoor music festival?
In general, interest in music festivals is at an all time high with one almost every weekend during the summer months. And while festivals used to be seen as the preserve of alternative types, they are now a firm part of the summer social calendar for everyone and heavy media coverage means that millions more can follow the events remotely.
For a few years in the 1990s, Sheffield did have a multi-cultural music festival called Music in the sun. I have fond memories of this - it offered a mix of indie, dance and reggae and tended to include a lot of local acts. Several of these were quite big though and I remember seeing the Longpigs, Baby Bird and Speedy one sunny afternoon in about 1997.
2008 would be a great year to bring the festival back. At the moment Sheffield has a healthy local music scene, with several bands like Little Man Tate, the Long Blondes and Milburn that command a decent live following and would be perfect to play a summer event.
There are also plenty of talented singer-songwriters from Sheffield (Neil McSweeney, Stoney and Helen Boulding) who would be good for an acoustic tent, not to mention the dance acts, DJs, reggae bands and other less mainstream musicians that would give the festival a proper multi-cultural feel.
Plus, perhaps there could be a place for a couple of classic Sheffield bands to also play, for example ABC or Thompson Twins? Although you wouldn’t want to turn the whole thing into a Hear and now-style nostalgia-fest.
Care would also need to be taken that the headlining act wasn’t *too* current and popular as it would diminish the value of the festival and turn it into just a big gig. Certainly Arctic Monkeys, Jarvis Cocker and maybe Reverend and the Makers would fall into this category.
Over the last couple of years there have been murmurings of a return for Music in the sun, but nothing has been announced. I really hope that it comes back and gives Sheffield a music festival that it deserves.
Recent comments