A heavy all-dayer at The Leadmill in Sheffield, Festivile pulls fans of metal, punk and alternative rock from all over the UK.
Festivile is a fantastic event because of its outlook. It gathers together and gets behind local talent. It lets artists from Yorkshire share a stage with household names. With your ticket, you can discover new music, experience the noisy and the ambient and enjoy every single performance. There is one stage and no clashes. Bargain, I’m in.
First on is Mathletics, whose music is a fusion of Foals and This Town Needs Guns. The band of two, Josh Drury and Oliver Hame, fully enjoy their twenty five minutes on-stage. In doing so, Mathletics deliver excellent rhythm and harmony and in return get raised eyebrows and curious glances aplenty.
Fourth Gate follow with the first heavy set of the day. Gritty, noisy and full to the brim with energy, it becomes clear that the band is hungry for success. The band storms into tracks taken from their ‘This is Home // This is Hell’ EP and it goes down a treat.
The Temple receives lots of support and cheers. Their single ‘Medusa’ quickly grabs the attention of the whole house. Logo t-shirts galore, heads bang and feet stomp.
Elegies and Counting Days fire things up and moshing ensues. The pace of their performances are fast and within the blink of an eye, it’s all over. Tongues wag as both acts leave their mark.
Bad Sign take us down route alternative rock. Festivile is treated to new songs which brews excitement and full devoted attention. Their thirty-minute set is nothing short of impressive and full of promise.
Dead Harts give their all for what is their last ever show. They move around the stage like dervishes and frontman Mathew Baxendale gets up close and personal, crowd-surfing and commanding the pit. Ears are deafened. Whirlwind.
Blood Youth kick it up a notch with a setlist made up of songs from their ‘Closure’ EP, and a few oldies. The crowd surges forward and welcomes the distortion from the guitars. The whole of The Leadmill sing choruses in harmony, jump up and down and enjoy a few mosh pits.
Broken Teeth and Astroid Boys are name-checked by attendees as the most quirky acts of the day. Die-hards proceed to shout every lyric back at the frontmen, swing arms and legs and refuse to stand still. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea. Although, by the end of their sets, both acts manage to convert a few to the dark side of the force.
Arcane Roots are the calm before the storm. The crowd is left entranced and hypnotised by guitarist and singer Andrew Groves’ guitar trickery and vocal range. Those in attendance fully enjoy getting lost in songs from the ‘Heaven & Earth’ EP and ‘Blood & Chemistry’.
Frank Carter And The Rattlesnakes, all dressed up in Gucci suits and floral shirts, put a huge amount of effort into their set. The band bulldoze through tracks from ‘Blossoms’, latest single ‘Snake Eyes’ and even play a brand-new number, ‘Modern Ruin’. Frontman Frank Carter incites a circle pit which travels through to the merch area and back to the stage. Unfortunately, punks and metal heads tumble over like dominoes. The crowd join in to chant “I Hate You”, sit on shoulders and rock a devil horn. In the here and now, Frank Carter and The Rattlesnakes are at the top of their game.
WORDS BY: THOM WHITE
PHOTOS BY: STEVEN HADDOCK