Close to Sheffield station there's a hoarding that proclaims Sheffield as
"Music City" and of course there's a Pulp song that makes the same claim.
Other cities might dispute that, but for one weekend Sheffield becomes
unarguably the focus. With Tramlines Festival taking over Hillsborough Park
with tens of thousands flocking to the three day festival, whilst its roots in
the city at Devonshire Green and the surrounding streets as a free festival
have been taken over by the Tramlines Fringe where hundreds of artists keep
with the original spirit of the festival and play for free.
Across town over three rooms at Network there's another event on Saturday,
strangely unadvertised in the official Fringe brochure, making it a fringe of
the fringe and clearly impacting numbers by putting on such a range of artists
and hardly telling anyone about it. In the main room we caught Ist Ist, Pet
Needs, The Covasettes and Phoebe Green playing a free to attend event to less
people than each of them have played or are playing soon, significantly so in
the case of some of them.
The first act we catch in the main room is Phoebe Green, someone we haven't
seen in quite a while. Performing with sister Lucy behind a bank of synths and
free to roam the stage, Phoebe is very much doing her own thing musically
these days rather than trying to fit a mould dictated by the industry and that
energy and joy transmits through her performance to the small but engaged
crowd there to see her. Mixing songs from her second album and her recent EP
Ask Me Now, the highlight of which is I Think I'm Getting Boring, it's an
energetic and entertaining set.
The Covasettes treat every gig like they're headlining a stadium and despite
starting late with technical issues today is no exception, pretending they're
doing a big cool walk on when they've been on stage ten minutes sorting out
the problems and engaging with the crowd as if there were tens of thousands
there rather than tens. Their songs are unashamedly upbeat and made for
festivals and hot sweaty rooms. Front man Chris is engaging and relentlessly
positive and their songs like Love In Polaroid and Be Mine, which finishes
their short but sweet set, wouldn't have felt out of place at the festival
proper on the outskirts of town.
The penultimate band of the night in Network 1 are Indoor Pets and like The
Covasettes they treat it as a headline set, not surprisingly given their recent string of sold out shows in support of their album Pathetic Apathetic. Hard to pin down and box in, songs
like Barbiturates and the set-closing London (Love To Hate) have a rawness to them that
transmits itself from the stage to the audience and connects with those who don't know them
prior warm to them as the set progresses as well as it does their hardcore fans. Front man Jamie is engaging, energetic and enthusiastic and the four of them's love of performing and belief in what they're doing makes them a fun watch.
Ist Ist headline, their final indoor show before the release of their fourth
album Light A Bigger Fire on September 20, and they take the opportunity to
debut two songs from that record - What I Know and Something Else - as well as
its three singles to date - Lost My Shadow, The Kiss and Repercussions as well
as the forthcoming Dreams Aren't Enough, released this coming Friday.
Supremely confident in these songs as well as the everlasting power of songs
from their impressive back catalogue - Black, Stamp You Out, You're Mine,
Nothing More Nothing Less and the exhilarating Emily - they deliver a set that
delights the faithful who've made the trek from various points across the
country as well as those curious onlookers who've solved the magical mystery
puzzle of finding the whole event.
Adam Houghton's vocals sit dead centre throughout, betraying just enough
emotion to let the listener in without giving everything away. His guitars
fuse into the melting pot of Andy Keating's bass, Mat Peters' guitars and
synth and Joel Kay's ferocious drumming that both fuel the songs and give them
the bold unbreakable structures that have served Ist Ist so well in bigger
spaces and crowds than this both here and abroad. They're primed and ready now
for when the gatekeepers of the industry finally let them in.
Light A Bigger Fire and previous records can be ordered via their website.
Digital versions of their previous limited edition releases and a number
of live field recordings are available to download from their Bandcamp.
Ist Ist play Y Not Festival (August 3), Hebden Bridge Trades Club (October
2), Leeds Brudenell Social Club (3), Glasgow Slay (4), Newcastle Think
Tank (5), Wolverhampton Newhampton Arts Centre (9), Bristol Exchange (10),
Brighton Komedia (11), Sheffield Yellow Arch (12), Cambridge Mash (16),
Nottingham Rescue Rooms (17), London Oslo (18), Manchester New Century
(19), Whitby Tomorrow's Ghosts Festival (November 1), Groningen De
Oosterpoort (4), Cologne Luxor (5), Frankfurt Zoom Club (6), Munich Live /
Evil (7), Zurich Exil (10), Vienna Chelsea (11), Prague Club Varsava (13),
Budapest Durer Kert (14), Warsaw Hybrydy (15), Bielefeld Movie (16),
Amsterdam Paradiso Grote Zaal (18), Antwerp Kavka Zappa (19), Paris Le
Mazette (20), Hamburg Kent Club (26) and Copenhagen Rust (27).
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