2007/2008- A great year for Sheffield parties???

[tommyB]

Before I begin I would just like to state that this is all my own opinion and I base what I say on what I have observed over my time here.

 

I've lived in Sheffield now for 8 years and I have never seen the state of our nightlife in as poor a state as what it was up until last year. When I first moved here, the city was vibrant with both small and big nights not just competing but working together to give the city a real image of buzz and a projection of quality. The big nights like Gatecrasher, Saturdays @ Bed and Sushi brought together local and wider known talent and, underneath them lay such a great support of quality smaller nights; Phon-etics, UG (back when it an ethos), Tuesday Club, Scuba, Remedy, Lights Down Low, Dub Central, Riddimtion, Head Charge....... I could go on but you get the point. These were the nights we could call our own. That brought and developed sounds within the city, and introduced us to the new, exciting sounds we may have never heard before.

 

Of late, Sheffield has had no small venues to put on these kind of parties. Venues have come and gone with most reverting to some kind of knockout R&B sound in order to pull in the masses. Out of the smaller nights I mentioned before, only UG, LDL, Riddimtion and Dub Central still exist (and I will say fair credit to all of them for that), but out of those four only Dub Central and Riddimtion still stand by their original convictions and from UG and LDL, neither is half the night they used to be, no matter what anyone says. And I'm not blaming them (totally). Both have been messed around from venue to venue and, from all accounts led up the garden path at points, but neither has done themselves any favours at the same time. LDL just let itself get stale and UG saw the dollar signs and forgot what it was originally about. On the other hand, Tuesday Club seems to be playing the "how many times can we book the same DJs in a year" game!!!

 

Ok, harsh words and I'm sure I will receive a certain amount of backlash. But to counter that I will point out that, with the disappearence of Sushi / Gatecrasher / Bed (all the big nights that I mentioned earlier), it was natural that others would have to move in and fill that void and, I'm not gonna blame either Tuesday Club or UG for doing just so. At least both these nights are our own and that is something we can be proud of. It can also be said that both these nights were unlucky as they became big at a time where there were very few smaller nights providing any real obvious talent for them to pick up on.

 

Then came Plug. I'm not gonna go to deep into how I feel about Plug but leat's just say I don't see them nurturing any real Sheffield talent artistically (at least TTC and UG have kept faith with Andy H / Stoaty and brought in Alan Chapman / Kickflip etc) and every line up seems to be directly aimed at knocking out competition. My opinion. I don't even know what night is what or where they really want to go with what they're doing. They just put on big names.

 

Again, I'm not just trying to spot the negatives here. In a perfect world Plug would be praised for the names and acts thay have brought into the city. Some awesome worldwide talent. But in a city that had no backbone of its own dance music wise, surely that's where there responsibility lay first? Surely, these nights should have been trying to take our artists and use their muscle to throw them out onto the bigger scene? Just a thought. If that was the case, surely more people would come from outside that city for our nightlife and surely the market for all thses nights would become bigger. Why would someone from Manchester have wanted to come clubbing in Sheffield? It's not like they have been able recently to see much they can't see there!

 

Anyway, now the picture has been set, i would like to make my main point, which is that last year I finally saw a wealth of new, small nights fighting and managing to impress themselves into the mindset. I can now list off names of several smaller but really quality little nights that have begun to get this city moving again; Club Pony, Kabal, Natural Shy, Razor Stiletto, Bass Bar, Walls of Balls, C90. All of which rely on that base of local talent alongside well chosen acts from outside. From the last year all the best nights I can remember were at these nights and the majority were from Sheffield acts playing alongside the bigger names; Paul Epworth @ Club Pony where I thought the residents totally out played him, Michael J Coxx @ Razor Stiletto, M.I. Loki's outstanding live show before FreQ Nasty @ Natural Shy, and more recently the R8 Records launch party at Bass Bar. All cementing the fact there is some great talent coming through in this city. May I also mention that fact that Kabal has really taken the mantle too. Inspired line ups, always fresh and nearly all coming from our city.

 

Yes, having places like DQ, The Harley and The Runaway Girl have helped massively in this, and yes we need to places to bring in the bigger names consistently but I do believe that the best things are built from within. I'd just love to see the bigger nights and venues use their muscle to help project an image of homegrown quality to the world rather than all the apparent inner city squabbling that seems to have hidden our once great clubbing city into the shadows of rubbish places like Manchester and Leeds (joke).

 

Bring on 2007/2008

[Rushup]

Methinks you've just opened a rather large can of worms....

 

I agree with some of your sentiments, but I think you've been a tad unfair on a few nights. I don't go to either very often, but can you imagine what Sheffield would be like without Urban Gorilla and Tuesday Club? Some of my mates been going to UG religiously for years, I don't recall them complaining about the line-ups!

[jay20fh]

I am totally in agreement with every word of your piece, Sheffield was fast becoming the place to be seen, heard and booked for many acts, DJ's and punters during the late ninties and more so into the millenium. But it didn't even take weeks or months for this city to lose its king/queen of the dancefloors reputation either, it was an overnight catastrophe.

 

I have seen many great nights come and go, some through their own greed and some through the greed of others. You are right with all the new talent finally arriving on the scene and knowing many of these guys personally, I can assure you many of them won't be falling into the traps nights like LOL, UG and others have. They know they have to drag this city off its sorry danced out out little ass and put some soul into its clubs and some life back into its punters.

[tomstarr]

Having just read some of the upcoming line ups for certain clubs in the city, I think this rings even truer!

[UNDONE]

At the end of the day, promoters can only cater for what people will do. No one wants to run a night that no one will turn up at.

 

I reckon the 5th October could be a good night to measure just what the people of Sheffield want as you have four nights advertised so far. Three have traditional 'big name' DJ's and to be fair their lineups would stack up against anywhere in the country. Ours is aimed specifically at people who want to come for the music, pay a few quid and have a great time plus at the same time we get to showcase a bit of local talent. We want to try and give it a real underground vibe as that's what we like and what people tell us is missing from the Sheffield scene.

 

 

Only time will tell.......

[JohnM]

Well Planet Zogg turned Seven last Friday to a packed Neutral (plug) with a line up that nobody could call commercial...

[neeeeeeeeeek]

I went to Zogg for an hour then got thrown out.. Admittedly this was at 6am when the lights came in.. It was a great night with a really good atmosphere and top people.

[WYEXILE]

I think both Plug and UG do have great line ups and you can't knock them for bringing some massive names to Sheffield. But you are right, the smaller more intimate underground nights seem to have disappeared. As much as I like the Plug I've yet to go to a night there that completely rocked from start to finish. It's just too big and brash, even the old Zero room doesn't seem to hold an atmosphere. My fav venues in Sheffield would have to be Uniq and the Fez.

 

As many people have told me before, many things have been tried in Sheffield and many things have failed. Maybe it's not the promoters, but the punters of Sheffield that are the problem? Maybe the people of Sheffield want superstar DJ's, if so, I can see them being very happy over the coming months.

[tommyB]

I'm not knocking them for running a business, what I'm knocking them for being devoid of any responsibility to our city. Another prime example, I went to Manchester this weekend to go to a house party. Was chatting to all the folks there and asked them if they ever went clubbing in Sheffield. They laughed at me. When I asked them to explain why, they said exactly what I wrote before, that there's nothing they can see here that they can't see there. Sheffield has become a non-entity on the national scene and that is a real shame. Of course 99 out of 100 punters will choose a big name over a local DJ or act, what I'm saying is that it would surely make Sheffield a little more unique if these clubs were mixing it up a little and trying to do something a little more unique and bringing in locals that those ***** in Manchester can't just expect to see over there. Yes it would be slightly risky but the rewards would be massive should people from other places start wanting to come here again. All that has happened is that the market threshold for these clubs is just sheffield and a few small towns on the outskirts

[tommyB]

Sorry, that wasn't a personal competition to see how many times I could say unique in one sentence!