Sunday at the Rotherham Show | Sun, sounds, and … ice cream?

By ESTHER ALDWINCKLE 

Our events and marketing assistant, Esther, details her day at The Rotherham Show in 2023. Featuring interviews with artists and performers from the Rhythms of Rotherham and Rockingham stages!

After having worked on the pilot Signals festival in 2023, I was later invited back by Rotherham Music and Children’s Capital of Culture to spend the day at The Rotherham Show (2023).

With the sun shining and the temperature sitting in the mid-20s, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the height of summer. Even at 10am, an hour before The Rotherham Show officially starts, Clifton Park is alive with eager early-comers and buzzing staff setting up. I walk past a plethora of vintage cars, nestled into a hill behind the bandstand, and on towards the Children’s Capital of Culture area.

With a programme in hand, I set about between the two main stages - Rhythms of Rotherham, and the Rockingham stage. I had a number of artists and bands in mind to interview for both Rotherham Music and Children’s Capital of Culture. Some were a few familiar faces, having worked with them for that year’s Signals festival. Some were new names that I was eager to get to know.

Rumbi Tauro

You can check out Rumbi Tauro's website here.

First on my hit-list was Rumbi Tauro, who had just finished her set of chilled, soulful tunes, perfectly catered for the Sunday morning crowd at the Rockingham Stage. Undoubtedly talented and equally as kind, Tauro lets me pull her from the stage for a chat about her artistry and musical impact. But first, we must address the one thing on our minds as we find refuge from the sun in the trees’ shade:

Favourite ice cream flavour?

‘Vanilla - specifically Haagen Daas.’ 

You said on stage that one of your songs was inspired by one of your friends… Is your life where you draw a lot of inspiration from? What inspires you as an artist?

‘My passion and love for music is what inspires me. [...] Because I’ve grown up with music. From the age of 5, I started the piano and then the violin and then started singing around 7 [years old]. So all the way growing up, Monday to Saturday, anything and everything was music-related, in and out of school. So being able to see how my love has started from a young age and then finding different layers to it as I’m growing. It’s like being inspired by what I’m learning each time.

Before it was just learning how to sing. I did that, ‘okay then it’s learning to perform and sing covers.’ Then, after that, ‘it’s okay, let me go to uni, do a bit of music there’, and when I came back it was the thing of like, ‘I wanna create my own music now’ - and then learning how to do that. So, I think it’s like the love of it that then pushes me out of my comfort zone and into something else. And then it’s like that inspiration of ‘I’m still in love with this thing’, you know? And finding new versions of myself.’ 

Outside of being an artist, where does music have an impact in your life or those around you?

‘Over the last year now, I’ve been able to tap into education and arts and culture in general. I’ve just finished a year with the arts council as part of their youth advisory board. Being able to be in rooms where they’re discussing the future of what access looks like for children and education when it comes to the arts and culture. And then, visiting different schools where you see how limited their access is - my focus is music, that’s the thing I mainly see - but to see how limited, already, their access is.

Like, for a music lesson, they’re putting up a song on youtube to learn the lyrics to and that’s the music lesson done! There’s so many different levels to a music lesson and that, for me, is something that would be a lunch time thing or an after-school thing.

But, I’ve been able to be in these different rooms and spaces and my passion has taken me out of just performing, and see what’s going on with the generation after me and what are we doing for them? Because, access-wise, I had, to be fair, fairly great access growing up in Doncaster but it’s not quite the same for all the regions within the UK. I’ve been tapping into education and facilitation; hosting singing and songwriting workshops for young kids, and choirs, and it’s been great!’

And what is next for you?

I am currently working on a project for next year. I’ve just finished recording my next single which will be out next month. [That’s out now for our readers!]  It’s called Storm. And it’s been great working on that, but now I’m ready for a project. My last project was my debut one in 2020, so I’m ready for a kind of like, solid body of work for people to hear and for me to hear ‘what do I sound like now’.

It’s great performing my stuff that I’ve previously released or some of the songs we’ve performed that aren’t released. It’s great to do that but I’m excited to get a solid body of work for people to listen to wherever in the world, rather than it being like ‘to hear the unreleased you’ve got to come to the shows’. So, new music, working with more children in education and different music organisations and hubs, and whatever else comes really!’

Evie & Mia:

For my next interview, I managed to catch young stars Evie and Mia after their set on the Rhythms of Rotherham stage. Despite the stage suffering from technical difficulties, the crowd is pleased and spirits are high as they’ve just finished a bubbling ABBA cover.

Naturally, we start with the most important question:

Favourite ice cream flavour?

‘I really love strawberry’

‘Neopolitan’

What has brought you guys to The Rotherham Show?

We’ve been trying to be gigging more, because we’re kind of wanting to make it a thing, we’ve only just started doing gigs. We did Doncaster Comedy Club, didn’t we?

We won a show in Sheffield.

We did a show in Manvers* as well. We just saw it on Facebook that they were wanting bands or singers and we were like ‘shall we do it?’

What’s brought you two together as artists?

We were in school together! We were friends in primary, and secondary. We spent a lot of time together, we both love music and it came together!

So what inspired you to start performing?

You’ve just got to have that passion inside of you, I think. You can’t do it without wanting to do it, if you don’t enjoy it then you can’t. You have to have that drive.

Any tips for when things go wrong on stage?

*They both laughed* 

Smile through it. If you look like you’re struggling it’s going to worry the audience. 

If you don’t look stressed, then the audience won’t be stressed. You’ve just got to roll with it. Pretend everything’s fine!

The crowds thickened throughout the afternoon and, back at the Rockingham Stage, I waited for the next band, Astrels, to finish their synth-rock set that sounded, simply, astral. At this point, many of the other artists joined behind the stage and watched on as the band gladdened the audience with their sounds.

Eventually, I get to pull the frontman - Steve Edwards - away for a chat.

Steve Edwards, of Astrels

What brings you to play at the Rotherham Show?

We were asked by one of the organisers - Liam. It’s nice to be asked to play somewhere where the sun is out! So that was a win.

Listening to your set, it sounds like quite a fusion of genres. How would you best describe the Astrels sound?

I’d say it’s quite cinematic [...]  like soundtrack [music]. I say anyone who likes films like Bladerunner or shows like Stranger Things, will probably like our music. It’s got that analog synthesiser sound, like a John Carpenter kind of film. Quite dark in places but it’s got a heart.

It’s quite funky in places, it’s heavy in places. We’ve been described as a bit Pink Floyd-y in places, in a couple of songs. We’ve also been kind of described as, you know, ‘big’. Just ‘big’, like ‘Justice’ [band], acts like Justice, French sound.

What’s next for you and next for Astrels?

So we’ve got an album - our debut album - which will be coming out in a couple months’ time so we’re gonna be doing an album launch gig. Probably at The Church in Kelham Island, it’s the place that’s owned by Bring Me The Horizon, so it’s fantastic. It’s so us, because it’s got all these vintage video games inside and there’s a lot of religious imagery and that’s kind of what Astrels is. We’re kind of anti-establishment.

You can imagine, we’re the band that’s set 100 years in the future. That band. 

Have you got more shows lined up? 

Yeah! So we’ve only been going for about a year. Our first show was October last year so we’re a fairly new kind of thing. We’re different enough. When people hear it they go ‘Oh okay, that’s different’. It stands out a bit, do you know what I mean? It’s not like indie or the usual or a lot of what you hear. Good stuff, don’t get me wrong. You hear a lot of good stuff. But you tend to hear a lot of stuff that’s similar, I find. Whereas I think Astrels is a bit more touchy and a bit more on a trip. It can be a listening experience if you want it to or it can be head music.

How have you found playing the Rotherham Show today?

I’ve enjoyed it, it’s been good fun. The sun has been a bonus, that’s definitely been a win before. It’s been interesting because, again, our music is not like sunshine music, it’s not kind of 12 o’clock midday in the sunshine kind of music. But people are out, people are smiling, they wanna have fun, they wanna have a good time, it’s been a very wet summer. So, it’s been nice to sort of play our music in front of some new people. And hopefully gained some new fans today!

Finally, what’s your favourite ice cream flavour?

When I was a kid I used to like those Funny feet. Do you know Funny Feet?

(I, in fact, did not know Funny Feet)

I always like rum and raisin!

The Power of Live Music

With Rotherham Show slowly closing in the late afternoon sun, the well-content crowds lulled around the stages, talking about the talent and calibre of the artists and acts they’d seen. It was clear that the musical talent in Rotherham had made an impact across the day and, undoubtedly, across the weekend. Families sat and played amongst the hay bales, whilst the pleased families and friends of bands gathered around the food and drink stalls, all soaking in the energy radiating throughout the crowds. Never a surprise but easily overlooked, the audience are reminded of their love and appreciation for live music and it’s power to bring people together.

In 2024, Children’s Capital of Culture will be bringing a variety of acts and performances to our Community Stage at Rotherham Show on the 7th and 8th of September. Check out the set lists on social media and find more information here.