One of the country’s best gig venues, The Leadmill, has announced it’s facing closure after it was served with an eviction notice.
The legendary music venue, which has been operating since 1980, says it’s being ‘forced to close’ next year when its tenancy expires.
But its landlord has today insisted that the building will remain a ‘special music venue’, though the ‘management may change’, The Hoot reports.
The Leadmill in Sheffield is facing closure. Credit: The Leadmill
The Leadmill has issued a heartfelt plea for support on social media, writing: “Today we have received some devastating news that in 1 year’s time, our Landlord is trying to evict us, forcing us to close.
“Since 1980 The Leadmill has spent millions of pounds on what was a derelict warehouse, transforming it into one of the U.K’s most respected venues where countless acts from across the globe have performed over the years.
“Please show your support by sharing this news & sharing your best memories that we can gather to help show them reasons why #WeCantLoseLeadmill.”
Today we have received some devastating news that in 1 year's time, our Landlord is evicting us and forcing us to close.
Since The Leadmill posted about the possible closure last night, some of the biggest names in music have thrown their weight behind the campaign.
Kaiser Chiefs wrote: “We played @Leadmill in our early days and not only do we have very fond memories, it really helped us, too. It would be a huge loss not just for Sheffield and Yorkshire, but the whole UK music scene. #WeCantLoseLeadmill.”
Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess added: “Such a brilliant venue. Let’s do all we can to stop The @Leadmill from closing.”
Barnsley band The Sherlocks wrote: “This venue is such a special place for so many reasons. We genuinely can’t imagine Sheffield without The @Leadmill. We as a band have so many special memories there! Get behind the venue everyone #WeCantLoseLeadmill”
And The Cribs posted: “The Leadmill is a wonderful and important venue. These are the sort of places that cities cannot afford to lose, the platform they give young musicians is invaluable. Great Leadmill memories are stagediving to Radish (@benkweller) in ‘97, hanging with the White Stripes in 2002.”
Landlord Dominic Madden, from Electric Group, said this morning: “I’ll be making a statement regarding @Leadmill shortly. For avoidance of doubt, we are music people, we spend our lives running independent music venues and the Leadmill will continue to operate as a special music venue. The management may change but the song stays the same.”
Featured image: The Leadmill
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Aitch is playing a huge hometown set at The Warehouse Project
Danny Jones
Aitch has booked another massive hometown slot as the Moston-born rapper will be playing none other than the home of clubbing here in Manchester: The Warehouse Project.
Joining the WHP25 programme, which is already stacked right up until New Year’s Eve, the 25-year-old is the latest rapper to take on the famous club venue, following the likes of Little Simz and Loyle Carner, who played the event series back in October.
Aitch‘s new album, 4 – which denotes the number of studio LPs he’s made to date and acts as a nod to the M4 postcode – was released on June 20 and has already proved popular with fans.
Having just played Parklife as well as a secret set at Glastonbury this year, he’s already performed most of his biggest slots for the year, but the ever-rising local rapper thought he’d given Manchester another big gig and one more chance to see him live in 2025.
As an increasingly popular main event act across the UK, a headline show at Warehouse Project is nothing short of a massive deal for any artist, let alone a Manc.
The date itself will see him see him performing songs from the new record, which is his second to hit the top 10, as well as a selection of multiple platinum-selling hits.
Sharing details of early access tickets on Instagram stories shortly after the announcement, the UK hip-hop and grime star reminded fans: “This is the only chance to see me shut this sh*t down this year!!!”
It’s actually his only major domestic show in full stop, so if you’re a die-hard fan of Harrison Armstrong and his music, you really don’t want to miss this one.
He’s not the only big name coming to Mayfield this season either.
WHP25 /// FISHER – TICKETS ON SALE NOW
Don’t miss out on what’s set to be an unmissable night – packed with infectious energy from beginning to end – as he takes over Depot Mayfield alongside a lineup coming very soon.
Featured Images — Jahnay Tennai (supplied)/Aitch (via TikTok)
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Five Manchester artists we’ve been listening to this month | June 2025
Danny Jones
Hello there. That greeting may be giving Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars vibes, and we can’t lie, we have listened to some cantina music while working this month… but not as much as we’ve been immersing ourselves in more new Manchester artists.
You should know the drill by now, and it is very much a what-it-says-on-the-tin scenario, but every few weeks, we round up some of the music – all crucially hailing from the Greater Manchester area – that we’ve been listening to of late.
We don’t discriminate when it comes to genre either. There’s only one simple rule: if it’s good, then we listen to it and then, hopefully, so do you.
Get your playlists at the ready.
Five Manc music artists we’ve been listening to recently
1. Arkayla
First up for June are relative newcomers Arkayla, whose name is inspired by “a terrible Oasis demo” from 1991 (their words, not ours – thought it is…) of the same name, a.k.a. ‘I Will Show You’, in which describe Liam Gallagher’s now legendary as once sounding “like a dodgy Ian Brown impressionist.”
However, there’s nothing dodgy about these lot and, thankfully, they’re in an era when you don’t have to hand out tapes recorded in the Boardwalk basement on the street to be heard. The Manchester band, which only formed in 2020, may be Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, but they’ve already got a sound.
There’s an unmistakable British indie element to them and hints at everything from The Kooks to The Lathums, but most notably, there are ’60s guitar notes and some real maturity already. Standouts include ‘Ella Malone’, the acoustic version of ‘Lost In a Valentine’, where the lead singer, Cal Blakebrough, really shines, and ‘Rita’ is such an addictive track.
They don’t get more unknown, undiscovered, but sure to be up-and-coming than iNNAFIELD, who are a female-fronted psychedelia-forward five-piece with roots in Brighton but building a career in 0161. Having recently shone at The Deaf Institute playing a support slot at Academy 1, they have our interest.
If a glimpse of lead singer Jessie Amy Leask’s curly hair, 70s belts and long, flowing skirts plants Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac in your mind, you’d be right in thinking so; a listen to their other live tracks scattered across their socials confirms there’s plenty of other influences going on too, though.
Now, they’ve only got one proper recording out on Spotify called ‘Tell Me What’s On Your Mind’, but we’ve had it popping up on our algorithms everywhere, and we can see why: there’s soft, twinkly strumming, soft almost sleepy vocals before a nice big breakout at the end. Glorious stuff.
No, not that one, the Princess of Monaco isn’t back from the dead, but ‘r Grace Kelly, who is based right here in Greater Manchester, is playing her part in the ongoing country revival taking place across the music world, offering her soulful voice and faux American-folk vibes to our ears.
She may not be a Mancunian by birth, having moved from New Zealand to our shores back in 2022, and although the weather change might have been a big sea change for her, there’s no culture shock to be found in her style; from the audio to the aesthetic, it still somehow feels pretty authentic.
Uplifting acoustic guitars, drum brush strokes, solos, Southern-twang harmonies – you name it, all the ingredients are there. The thing is, if you spend enough time immersing yourself in a genre, you can still pull off tracks like ‘Carry On’, ‘San Jose’ and the intimate ‘For Us To Change’.
We’re really lane switching when it comes to genre this month; maybe it’s because festival season is in full swing and we’re just being exposed to so much different stuff in a short space of time, all we know is we’re not complaining about it.
And neither should you, especially when you’ve got names like hip-hop, grime, soul and flag-flying Afrobeats rising star, Prido, being platformed. Blending all the above with R’n’B and a sprinkling of not just Northern but easily detectable Manc slant, it makes his music stand out in the ever-thriving space.
‘Free Ur Mind’ was the first track we ever heard, so we’ve struggled to shake that as our favourite, but ‘DND’ is a supremely dancey but chill example of laid-back of the genre that you need in your mixes this summer, and we also have a soft spot for his verse on the sensual ‘Lifeboat’ by Prima.
Last but not least on our list of new Manchester artists for this June, we’ve got local DJ Josh Baker, whose name you might recognise from the headlines surrounding Parklife 2025, as his set was unfortunately cancelled due to problems out of his control.
Festival-goers flocked to The Matinee Stage for a highly anticipated back-to-back bill of Baker followed by Dutch counterpart Chris Stussy, both of whom have thrilled some of the biggest club crowds in the country – sadly, he didn’t get to do so this time. That being said, we thought we’d give him a shout-out.
We’ll confess to only having got around to his discography following this news, but ‘Back It Up’, ‘Something To Me’, and ‘You Don’t Own Me’ with Prospa and RAHH are all bangers. We’re looking forward to listening to more.
And that should just about do you; there are five artists and, at the very least, 15 new tracks for you to give a go – there should be at least of few of them you like.
But, let’s be honest: be it unheard, new, current, old or anything in between, Manchester music very rarely ends up being filed in the skippable category.
Then again, you can always check out last month’s list of Manc artists from last month and see if you get a better hit ratio.
Daisy Jackson -
1st April 2022 
