I never heard of Sheffield's Tramlines festival before but I was dead excited when I heard Alistair was playing there. He hasn't come this close to my home since 2008 when he played in Notts with Ivyrise.
Bret and I got up quite early Saturday morning. Although it didn't start until 2.30pm the website warned of long queues to get in anywhere. There were lots of line ups in lots of venues all over the city.
We arrived in Sheffield about mid-day and although I lived there for nearly 3 years, I couldn't recognise any of it. Bret kept reminding me it was 20 years ago so I guess it has changed a lot. Even the outside of the station had changed and it's all modern now.
After some frustration when I couldn't get a signal on my phone I finally was able to connect and find our way using Google maps. I am sure it took us the long way round though as we were walking for ages. When we finally got there we were met by this huge queue. It was just after mid-day but there was already 100s of people there and we queued for half an hour.
The first act on were a girl group called Duchess. I guess they aspired to be Destiny's Child but there was confusion on which one wanted to be Beyonce. They were alright but nothing special.
Next were SixD. I had only heard of them because they were on Scott Mills' show a few days before. They are supposed to be like Flawless with singing but to me they are more like S Club 7 but for the 21st century. A lot of the kids liked them. So far though we could still sit on the grass and listen and see the stage perfectly.
The Reason 4 were a bit more popular and people gathered and more people stood up to see them. They did 3 songs and were very good at getting the crowd going. They are all very ripped and toned and I bet there were a few swooning women (and men) You may remember them from X factor last year.
Ivyrise were next on the bill. As I said, I have seen Ivyrise before when they toured with Alistair and Paper Heroes so I knew how good they were and thought it was time to stand up. They were quite popular with a lot of others too. They did a good set of 4 songs. It was the first act who performed good music - ll the rest had been just singing along to track but Ivyrise were a proper band with proper instruments and they really rocked it.
Rizzlekicks were next. I had no idea who they were but I had heard their hit "Trumpet" before. They were actually great fun to watch. they have loads of energy and were just jumping all over the stage. I had a job getting pics of them together. Lots more people were standing now as they all wanted to see what was going on. Down in the front it was getting really raucous. I was so glad we stayed where we were as people were throwing bottles and pints of beer and food. It was nasty down there. Each time the Hallam FM presenters came onstage they warned of ejections but that didn't really work.
It got a little crazy from here on in. As soon as Pixie Lott was announced on stage hundreds of people appeared from nowhere. So far I had a perfect view of the stage but now all I could see was this
Bret and I moved down to the top of the bank. Bret suggested we move down to the front of the stage but I didn't want the risk of being pelted by bottles or worse. Where we were was fine.
Al came on to great reaction. He looked great too. He had posted on Twitter that he was going to wear the tightest trousers he could find and boy did he just!!
Blinding lights
Chemistry
Blown away
Save This day
All these dreams
Just Drive
Alistair really did rock the crowd and they seemed to like it. There was a lot of jumping up and down and waving of arms down in front and there were still a lot of people around rocking the the sound of The Griff.
We left after Al finished. We were hot and tired and it was a long walk to the station. I was also hungry. I hadn't thought about bringing lunch or drinks at all. I also hadn't brought money either. Earlier on I had given Bret some money to get a pizza - which wasn't a bad deal really £2 for a 7" pizza but I thought I could wait till I got home.
We were home by 9PM and I made Sausage Sarnies YUM!
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