A View from the Fringe: “It stays true to the original, idealistic principles of this most Sheffield of festivals”

Nick Harland rounds up his pick of the acts from the Tramlines Fringe stages

Relentless rain. Grey, overcast skies. Oh, and mud. Lots and lots and lots of mud. Yep – the UK festival season is in full swing, and it’s as wet as ever. But when did a bit of rain ever dampen our spirits? Anyway, this is par for the course for Tramlines. There were similarly biblical conditions during the very first edition back in 2009, but that didn’t stop the festival becoming an immediate success. Start as you mean to go on and all that.

Fast forward to 2023, and Tramlines has become as much a staple of Sheffield culture as stainless steel, Hendo’s and unprompted rambles about the weather. While the main Tramlines Festival has gradually expanded into Hillsborough Park (via a brief sojourn in Ponderosa), The Fringe at Tramlines remains stubbornly rooted in Sheffield city centre. And it’s still ‘Free For All’ – just as the original Tramlines promised in 2009.

The Fringe certainly hasn’t stood still, mind. 2023’s offering is more diverse than ever before, with a dizzying mix of styles, genres and venues that make the main event’s Indie Disco 2008 lineup look a little pedestrian in comparison.

My Fringe began at the main stage at Devonshire Green on Saturday afternoon. I was there to check out The Beatles Dub Club, aka Chris Arnold, whose stupendously good reggae and dub remixes of Fab Four classics have been going down a storm at festivals up and down the country. But the scheduling here didn’t do him any favours. His early afternoon set at a drizzly Dev Green didn’t attract the crowd it deserved, with the gloomy skies keeping people away and hinting that a different kind of storm was on the way.

After the set I wander down Division Street. With already-merry punters spilling out into the streets and the strains of live music bleeding out of every bar, it feels like the proper beating heart of the festival around here. But I had an appointment to make on the fringes (geddit?) of the city centre. I’m heading up to Heeley People’s Park to check out Pax in the Park, which is run by the same team behind the Dorothy Pax. The vibe up in Heeley is a little different to Division Street, in the same way that the Sun is a little bit warmer than Earth. Here, it’s more vegan beer and sequins than plastic glasses and polo shirts.

I’m here to see Astrels – the latest project of bonafide Sheffield legend Steve Edwards. Steve has been writing catchy, uplifting, joyous pop songs since around the time of the Big Bang, and the spaceship funk of Astrels is only a slight deviation from his sun-kissed songbook. It was the perfect middle finger to the ominous grey clouds gathering above.

It wouldn’t be a proper festival without walking for bloody miles, so I hotfoot it back into town and make it into Crystal just before the heavens open. I’m there in time to check out the fittingly named Floodhounds, who bring massive riffs and massiver tunes to the party during a 30-minute set of rip-roaring rock’n’roll fun. Outside, Division Street is slowly but surely degenerating into fully-fledged lunacy. I pass by a makeshift tent blaring out 90s garage before making my way to a Sheffield institution: the Frog and Parrot.

This legendary venue remains one of the best live venues in the city. I’m here to see the highly-touted Any Old Iron play a sweaty, high-energy set of fuzzy garage rock to a packed crowd. It’s all wall-shaking guitars, monolithic riffs and debauched frontman antics, who almost certainly would have swung from a chandelier had there been one present. He had to make do with climbing the bannisters instead.

I did move on to The Washington afterwards for a late-night dance and drink, but at this point my memory starts to get a little hazy, which is probably for the best. You win again, alcohol. Some things never change, and nor does The Fringe. It stays true to the original, idealistic principles of this most Sheffield of festivals. It may not be as feted as its big brother in Hillsborough Park, but there’s really nothing quite like The Fringe.