If you love live music and happen to live in Sheffield, then you’ve probably heard of The Leadmill. The popular grassroots music venue that’s seen the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Kings of Leon and The Killers perform has apparently been given its notice, being scheduled for eviction next year after over forty years of music-making.
But they’re not going down without a fight. The Leadmill has asked people to share “your best memories that we can gather to help show them reasons why #WeCantLoseLeadmill“. Arctic Monkeys have been helping in their own way, reposting the picture seen below on Instagram.
The group have a bit of history helping out the venue, what with last year raising over £100,000 for them (as well as other independent grassroots music venues) through a raffle for frontman Alex Turner’s black Fender Stratocaster, something that was crucial to those early Arctic Monkeys gigs.
At the time, Rebecca Walker (Leadmill’s general manager) said that “That’s an insane amount of money and will go so far to securing not only the bricks and mortar of venues, but also their key members of staff …. To them, it’s just a guitar but to us it’s a lifeline – it’s a matter of whether a venue can stay open or not.”
Sadly it doesn’t seem to have been much help in the long term. Facing eviction in a year’s time, Leadmill’s current managers accuse their owners of using a “cheap, shabby, sly and underhand way of doing business“, “destroying our business by evicting us“ and intending “to profit from the goodwill and reputation built up over those 40 plus years“ by their own efforts.
Despite the owners of the site claiming it means only a change of management, not its end as a music venue, there are still a lot of harsh feelings in the air. You can read Leadmill’s full statement here.
On some slightly happier news, Arctic Monkeys should be due for some new music later on this year, with their next album reportedly being almost ready to go. The band’s drummer, Matt Helders, said last November that “It was a bit disjointed how we had to do it, and there are bits to finish off, but yeah, it’s all in the works.“ It’ll be a well-anticipated follow-up to 2018’s well-received Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, so keep a lookout for that. As for live dates, you can look at their website here, with gigs at Reading & Leeds and Electric Picnic coming up.
