Tramlines Fringe 2025- Independence is always more interesting

(Credits: Far Out / Press)

Fri 25 July 2025 9:09, UK

Back in the day, Tramlines was free. Initially, the Sheffield festival was for the community, hosted mainly at Ponderosa Park, but also scattered throughout the city’s venues, meaning that the city would be buzzing for that weekend in July. Then, in a tale as old as time, the suits got involved, it moved out of town, tickets got more and more expensive, and suddenly, it didn’t feel like something Sheffield owned.

So what did they do? Replaced it. 

In 2018, Tramlines moved over to Hillsborough Park and into a 30,000 capacity field-style festival, a tram ride out of town. I understand it, really I do. The people who organised the festival deserved the payday, and as operations were levelling up, including bigger names and needing a bigger budget, the decision to sell out to a corporation made financial sense. But, to a hefty degree, it failed at what was always the core of the weekend.

Sheffield has an incredible scene, but you’d be excused for not realising it. Caught between the bigger cities of Manchester and Leeds, it’s a spot that’s always been stuck in the shadows despite being a breeding ground for greatness. When I say that, of course, I mean Pulp, Arctic Monkeys, Self Esteem, Richard Hawley and Co, but I also mean all the bands there right now, playing the city’s amazing independent venues, poised to draw in major crowds this weekend despite not being on the Tramlines lineup. 

Because, while the official lineup is good, especially this year with Pulp taking over the park for a major homecoming, it’s like every other one this year. You see the same names on there that will be doing a tour of all of those mid-sized festivals. They’ll drop into Sheffield for the day, only hit up Hillsborough, play, pile back into their vans and leave to go to Y Not or somewhere else. Their sets will be good, the beers will be expensive, and the day will go as every festival day always does.

Femur - Get Together Festival - Sheffield - 2024(Credits: Jacob Flannery)

But in town, it’ll be bustling with all sorts of people at every corner. Following the decision to move the festival out into the field, the Sheffield scene has basically ignored it. To them, Tramlines still lives in the city centre and in all the venues they’re playing year-round. Thus, the Tramlines Fringe was born, keeping the initial shape and energy of the festival going through local venues and artists organising themselves, putting on their free lineups and ensuring that this is still a weekend where the town remains full of music.

Since then, it’s become beloved. It’s not just that Sheffield bands get bookings and are busy for a weekend, but it’s now also an event that people travel in for, with names like Flat Party and Sweet Unrest coming up from London for 2025’s lineups, or Mouse Teeth coming over from Leicester to play.

In those three names alone, there’s the kind of variety that the official festival lineup struggles with. Flat Party deliver pure Britpop-inspired indie, Sweet Unrest lean more towards punk, and then Mouse Teeth will be up there reading poems to truly genreless musical backing. Elsewhere through the weekend, as Sheffield’s finest play, Life Aquatic Band can be categorised with no easy label beyond a promise they’ll make you smile, and Sister Wives bring Welsh language beauty while Mickey Nominomo channels Baxter Dury.

Mostly though, regardless of genre and style, what Sheffield acts do best is being a perfect reminder of the DIY spirit. This is a scene that truly supports one another and supports itself. You’ll see one band in the crowd cheering on another, you’ll see people carrying instruments through the street, stopping to chat to one another, both on their way to their next slot. That’s what Tramlines used to be about, so that’s what Sheffield made sure Tramlines Fringe maintained.

While the official lineup boasts big names, it also bears the markings of the way the industry can become one-note. As the Fringe remains community-run, it stays community-shaped, rich and exciting with intrigue and range, and welcoming anyone into the free-for-all—and also promising better pints than the ones you’ll get in a branded paper cup.

A playlist of acts to catch at Tramlines Fringe 2025

  1. Mouse Teeth – ‘The Original Of Laura’
  2. Whitehorse – ‘Doesn’t Come Close’
  3. Any Old Iron – ‘Holdout’
  4. Mickey Nomimono – ‘Hot and Cold’
  5. Life Aquatic Band – ‘You Can Do It’
  6. I Set The Sea On Fire – ‘Beff Jezos’
  7. Shelley Byron – ‘Silly Goose’
  8. Sweet Unrest – ‘Waste My Time’
  9. Teah Lewis – ‘Underweather’
  10. Junk – ‘Whatever You Want’
  11. Spanish Horses – ‘Summerhouse’
  12. Good News – ‘Orange Juice In The Shower’
  13. Nervous Pills – ‘Cheetah’
  14. Sister Wives – ‘YnCanu’
  15. Hallan – ‘Lilian’s Regret’
  16. Ten Eighty Trees – ‘Stay At Home’
  17. Floodhounds – ‘Psychosemantics’
  18. Flat Party – ‘Shotgun’
  19. Life Aquatic Band – ‘No End In Sight’
  20. Surf Jaz – ‘Lindo’
  21. FlatStanley – ‘Arthur’
  22. Femur – ‘Watch Me, Watch You’
  23. Dearthworms – ‘Strike Low’
  24. Plum Jr. – ‘My Day’
  25. Drastic//Automatic – ‘Dead Dead Data’
  26. Mouse Teeth – ‘Playing The Hermit’
  27. Any Old Iron – ‘Caterwaul’
  28. Flat Party – ‘Paranoia/Delicate Dawn’
  29. Good News – ‘New Dawn’
  30. Sweet Unrest – ‘Falling For You’
  31. I Set The Sea On Fire – ‘Iodine’
  32. Flat Moon – ‘Schleep’
  33. Jumper Boy – ‘Times New Roman’
  34. Bones Ate Arfa – ‘Vineyard’
  35. Bonk! – ‘Wave’
  36. Bait Britain – ‘Glencoe (No Place Like Home)’
  37. Junk – ‘Headache’
  38. Cleaver Blue – ‘Moving On Too Soon’
  39. Polat – ‘Breakaway’
  40. Archy & the Astronauts – ‘Bite The Hand’

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