Tramlines 2013

Tramlines is a music festival that has been happening every year for 5 years now. I always knew that the past Tramlines festival’s would not be free forever, so this year 2013 the organiser’s decided to make a charge of £6 per day for a 3 day weekend, advance weekend tickets were £16 + a free programme (the programmes are £3 each) If you are going to be checking various bands out then the programme is vital. Because the weekend tickets sold out a week before the festival I just bought individual day tickets.
A few months before Tramlines when I heard that the they were going to charge I thought that maybe they would get bigger bands in however I was wrong, It is still a bargain for £6 a day or is it? There were argly any bands that I recognised, there were more local acts playing this time which could be a good thing but the so called Main Stage was poor in comparison from the previous years in terms of popular band names.
A few places such has the Harley bar (on Glossop Road) do not deserve to have decent bands on and here is why, they do seem to have decent bands on. So what exactly am I moaning about I hear you say? The Harley Bar had on quite a few good sounding bands but the place is small. We got to the Harley Bar an hour before Public Service Broadcasting came on. In the bar there were way too many people in, it was like Crystal Maze trying to get to the toilet as the toilets are situated at the back of the pub, the bar is on the right hand side and goes all the way down towards the toilets so everyone was stood at the bar to get served and the rest were either watching the band just about to finish (before Public Service Broadcasting came on) or dashing behind a pillar squeezing your way to the toilets through people. About 15 mins before Public Service Broadcasting came on and the fire alarm came on so most of the people had to get out. This was perhaps done on a purpose and there was way too many people in. Managed to get back in however there were no time for the band to come on who was going to be playing just before P. S.B. Public Service Broadcasting use voices from 50 and 60 films with their music, they are quite unique but the heat inside of Harley was getting on my nerves, I was sweating a lot and I was just stood still no air whatsoever. Public Service Broadcasting were good but they should have been at a larger venue maybe O2 Academy. I think the Harley would be great just to have acoustic bands playing and maybe at the front of the pub so the bar and toilets would be approachable.
Leadmill, Corporation and O2 had some decent bands going off. And it’s about time that the O2 Academy started to use it’s main stage as well as the stage 2 stage (small room). The stage near City Hall from the previous years moved to O2 Academy main stage this year. Much better as well as the stage near to the City Hall from previous years used to get jam packed. The Stone Roses film that the O2 academy showed was poor in sound quality though, struggled to hear what the band were actually talking about to be honest. But the free whisky was rather nice especially that O2 academy drinks are very expensive.
Highlights See Emily Play at Weston Park, Jonny Borrell (lead singer from Razorlight) Leadmill.
Puzzles (electronic) at Dada Bar were a nice surprise.
Most of the others that I saw were either average or below average.
Plug who had quite a lot of bands last year almost had bugger all on this year, and it’s a large venue. Soyo and Corporation were surprisingly nice and cool inside. Harley needs air con.
I don’t see any point that the Malin Bridge Inn is part of Tramlines, it’s miles away from town who actually is going to go all way there just to see a band then come back? A few other places also seem a bit out of way.
Very strange that the Tramlines website said that 2013 will be our biggest year yet? !
Expensive food from the food hut places I had a burger from Peace Gardens well I could have ate 5, they were very small burgers and cost £3.50. Go to Harmony Café (Chinese) or Red Deer pub decent price for a good portion about £6.50-£8 depends what you have.
My score is ²⁄₅ overall.