Tramlines Pageant – Saturday (see additionally Friday and Sunday)
Sheffield Hillsborough Park
Twenty sixth-Twenty eighth June 2025
The South Yorkshire devoted turned out in power to see considered one of their very own, The Reytons, high the invoice on day two of Tramlines Pageant. Paul Clarke watched Rotherham’s hardest working band have a good time one other milestone of their DIY profession.
After the triumphant return of Pulp on Friday, The Reytons have been making the brief journey down the A60 from Rotherham to headline a competition the place they began life on the very backside of the invoice at a Tramlines new band night time. They’d be the primary unsigned band to headline Tramlines, and searching spherical the sphere it appeared I used to be about the one individual not sporting a Reytons-branded soccer shirt.
The final time I noticed rising indie stars The Okay’s was at Leeds Pageant the place they battled severe technical points, so I had no concept what they have been actually like. Right here, they made full use of their early afternoon important stage slot smashing their method by means of Icarus, with lads and lasses already on one another’s shoulders bellowing the phrases again to them. This personable Merseyside outfit are on the verge of the large time, and Chancer earned a uncommon singalong in such an early slot, repeated as frontman Jamie Boyle strapped on an acoustic for a shifting Hoping Perhaps. It was all going off for his or her anthem, Sarajevo, as pink and inexperienced flares have been let off everywhere in the area. You gained’t be seeing The Okay’s this far down the invoice in future, particularly as they spent two hours within the merch tent signing autographs. That’s the way you construct a following.
Tramlines have a convention of placing veteran pop acts on the primary stage, and in 2024 it was native legends The Human League. This yr it was returning pop star and songwriter Natasha Bedingfield, who smiled her method by means of a sequence of hits in half-hour. Pocketful Of Sunshine is a complete pop banger that acquired the gang grooving, and Single was naturally devoted to ‘all of the singletons’, incomes a large cheer from a bunch of twentysomething girls subsequent to me. Curiously, when Bedingfield sang the insanely catchy These Phrases, those self same girls began singing each phrase after they have been most likely about two when it got here out. Such is the facility of TikTok. And there was a beautiful second on the finish when Bedingfield introduced her son out to bask within the applause she had undoubtedly earned.
Nineties legend Heather Small was within the T’Different Place tent and it was standing room solely as she belted out all her M Individuals Hits. This was extra of a PA as she was singing to backing tracks however, blimey, she had not misplaced any of the facility in that booming voice. Streams of youngsters not even born when Small was a fixture on Prime Of The Pops weaved their method by means of the packed crowd looking for a spot, as older pop followers have been reminded simply what an awesome pop band M Individuals have been. Proper from One Night time In Heaven, individuals have been hugging and singing alongside, and How Can I Love You Extra? was a kind of moments the place a crowd turns into one. Proud was devoted to the Lionesses earlier than their Euros last the following day, and it appeared just like the canvas roof may come off throughout a celebration time model of Shifting on Up.
Glasgow’s Franz Ferdinand could also be heading for his or her twenty fifth birthday, however their final album The Human Worry was high 3 within the charts, in order that they proved to be the right band to heat up for the headliners. Alex Kapranos was a Duracell frontmanm endlessly roaming the stage and exhorting the gang – ‘I really like your power tonight’ – to get behind this extremely proper outfit…and it labored. Easy engagement resulted in a excessive power crowd of all ages as they ripped by means of Michael, Jaqueline, and all time indie pop traditional Take Me Out, full with Kapranos leg kicks, from their iconic Mercury Prize profitable debut file. There have been a great deal of uneven guitars of their set though, like all clever bands, they’re not resting on their appreciable laurels as one of many singles from their new file, Hooked, is pushed by a easy synth riff. An prolonged jam round This Fireplace from their debut was a becoming finish to a job properly achieved as the gang have been now actually revved up for The Reytons.
The headliners got here on with a bang as a gang of riot police rushed onto the submit apocalyptic set banging their Reytons-branded shields as others jumped out of a large Malicious program that had been wheeled on. After which the band emerged from the horse…it might have been a bit Spinal Faucet however was truly a very intelligent option to set their stall out.
The Reytons aren’t pushing the musical boundaries, however they’re a rock stable indie rock band. Kicking off with Purple Smoke, it was beautiful to witness ranks of youngsters singing the phrases as pink smoke from flares swirled across the park. Reytons followers love their DIY strategy, the place the 4 band members do all the pieces from YouTube movies to designing the soccer shirts all their followers appear to sport, so it was no shock a ‘Yorkshire, Yorkshire’ chant rang out throughout Harrison Lesser.
Lead singer Johnny Yerell, clad head to toe in Stone Island, held up a poster displaying them proper on the backside of the invoice at a Tramlines Introducing occasion in 2015. A decade later, he was standing there as a headliner alongside his greatest mates saying ‘that is fucking psychological’. There was even a little bit of rapping in 2006 as Yerell reeled off misplaced South Yorkshire venues, together with the not too long ago closed Leadmill, which the tune was devoted to.
The Reytons are a rarity nowadays as a real working class band, so songs like Market Avenue and Money In Hand and Faux IDs spoke to the true life experiences of a crowd that will get what they’re singing about. The band stopped instantly for a crowd incident throughout Headache, and after a ten minute break they have been again to debut Seven In Search Of A Ten and rip by means of the sincere storytelling of Slice Of Lime and the brilliantly named Billy Massive Bollocks.
This crowd would sniff out insincerity at 100 paces, so when Yerell talked concerning the band forming a Grassroots Basis to encourage a few of the working class youngsters within the crowd to grasp their very own desires, they knew he meant it. Smoke was nonetheless swirling around the park as they performed their mission assertion Children Off The Property as fireworks shot into the night time air. A clearly moved Yerell mused to the gang ‘I don’t know the way it occurred’ however the followers do. Exhausting bloody work, and really which means what you say while you sing concerning the struggles of on daily basis life.
No-one can ever accuse The Reytons of short-changing their followers, and this cleverly conceived present was in its personal hearts on sleeves method simply as shifting and spectacular as Pulp’s homecoming the night time earlier than.
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Phrases by Paul Clarke, you may see his writer profile right here.
Photographs by Andrew Whitton, Matt Higgs and Carolina Faruolo equipped
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