Could Taylor Swift ever play Sheffield?

Dear readers — we started this month with a feature on the small venues around the city putting on weird and wonderful acts on a shoestring. We’re ending it by looking at the other end of the spectrum — the big names that can draw crowds of thousands. Many people will tell you that Sheffield’s live music scene isn’t what it used to be, claiming that acts who would once see Sheffield as a vital stop on a tour are now giving us a swerve.

But is that true? We asked new writer for The Tribune, David Coleman, to scour the touring schedules of the most popular acts over the last twenty years, to find out whether Sheffield really has slipped down the national rankings, and what we need to do to become more attractive to the big names.

First, it’s your Tribune briefing.

Your Tribune briefing 🗞️

🔥Arsonist incarcerated: A man has been arrested after a spate of arson attacks in eastern Sheffield suburbs of Beighton and Sothall. The three incidents all happened within a mile of each other in less than 48 hours between Sunday and Tuesday this week. At around 4am on Sunday, a bin fire spread to a property on Tynker Avenue in Beighton, while a caravan fire spread to a house on Bramshill Close just two hours later. A third fire took place on Meadow Gate Avenue at around 2am on Tuesday, starting in a wheelie bin before spreading to two cars and a nearby property. There were no injuries.

🍔 Kommune revamp: The Tribune has been following the story of troubled foodhall Kommune for some time, and yesterday there was a major update. Opened in 2019, the venue initially proved to be very popular, but poor management and the Covid pandemic ate into profits. On Wednesday, The Star reported that Kommune’s last day of trading will be this Saturday, 1 March, before it reopens again at the end of April under the new name Department. The relaunch is reported to include new food traders as well as a full programme of events including festivals, local makers’ markets, vintage fairs, and art exhibitions.

🐊 Snap judgment: A South Yorkshire man has been accused of illegally keeping an alligator at his South Yorkshire home. Ashley Betts, 32, of Carlyle Court, Maltby, appeared before Sheffield Magistrates’ Court yesterday charged keeping a “dangerous wild animal, namely American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis), other than under the authority of a licence granted in accordance with the provisions of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 by a local authority”. The case, which has been brought by Rotherham Council, was adjourned until next month.

🐔 Coming home to Roost: An update on The Marples, the city centre flat block that was turned into a failed housing co-op last year by a tech start-up from London. Thanks to the chaos last year, many tenants fled the building and it’s currently less than half full. On 10th January, the job of managing the building was officially handed over to Four Trees Letting, the private rental arm of local homeless charity Nomad, who have been working hard on all the necessary repairs, which will be funded by the owner. “We’re making good progress with that,” a spokesperson from Nomad told The Tribune. “We’ve got people on site practically every day.”

The tech start-up that caused havoc at the building — formerly Roost, more recently Stead — is out of the picture and has just had to boot all tenants out of one of its other co-ops in London. Earlier this month, The Tribune received an email from one of these tenants, who alleged that Roost/Stead CEO Andrew Baillie told them it was happening because the company “was going under”. When contacted by The Tribune, Baillie insisted this was not the case and that the lease for this property came to an end, for unclear reasons. “We have offered to forgive substantial arrears, and help with moving costs etc,” he added. “The goal is to find a good outcome that works for affected tenants.”

By David Coleman

When I moved to Sheffield a quarter of a century ago, it was undoubtedly one of the UK’s major music hubs. Whether it was creating seminal records (Pulp, Warp Records, the legendary synth-pop scene of the 1980s) or hosting the leading lights of pop, rock, and electronic music, Sheffield was very much a top-tier destination for the musically inclined.

This was a key reason behind my decision to move here for university in 2000. Officially, I came here to study medicine, but in reality, I spent as much time working on my fledgling music magazine, No Ripcord, attending lectures during the day before taking in a seemingly endless array of spectacular gigs at night. The weekend was earmarked for writing reviews and blowing whatever was left of my dwindling student loan at Record Collector in Broomhill. Even allowing for the influence of nostalgia, the early 2000s seemed like a great time to be a music fan in Sheffield.

But over the last decade, it’s been hard to escape the nagging feeling that Sheffield has fallen as a music destination. Smaller venues — the likes of Delicious Clam, Sidney & Matilda, and Crookes Social Club — are doing sterling work, but many of the more established artists I want to see opt to bypass Sheffield altogether. Has the city lost its musical mojo, or does this middle-aged music critic merely need to remove his rose-tinted spectacles? To answer that question definitively would require trawling through masses of data on which stars visited Sheffield, and when. So that’s what I decided to do.

To avoid this turning into a full-blown academic study, I’ve focused on three years: 2004, 2014 and 2024. And I’ve exclusively focused on English cities (Scottish music, like its football, is all about Glasgow), to determine Sheffield’s position in the national pecking order, its primary rivals, and how this has changed over the last 20 years.

2004: The good old days?

In the pre-Spotify world of 2004, music fans bought albums (mainly on CD) and commercial success was judged by sales rather than streams. For my analysis, I have chosen to look at the touring activity of the artists behind the top twenty best-selling UK albums. It’s a quaint list, packed with the likes of Natasha Bedingfield, Ronan Keating, and Keane.

Sheffield did well here. It hosted five of the top twenty artists, coming seventh on the list, which was better than the likes of Bristol, Brighton and Liverpool, and just one behind Newcastle and Nottingham. 

Despite not having an arena at the time, Leeds hosted nine, while Manchester (thirteen) and Birmingham (eleven) were the best performers outside of London (sixteen). This speaks to a fairly even playing field, with commercially popular artists committing to wider UK tours and more provincial appearances.

I also looked at those who were “critically acclaimed” — those artists who released the top 50 most acclaimed albums that year, as listed by music aggregator, Album of The Year. Sheffield only hosted three of these artists, placing tenth on the list. 

The overall dataset is quite small, but clearly, there’s a solid argument that Sheffield was a top ten city in 2004. This chimes with my experience at the time, which suggests my memory is still at least moderately reliable. But did the situation deteriorate in the ensuing twenty years?