‘It was the atmosphere that made The Leadmill so special’

“It’s about the people you meet there and the memories you make, not how the place is decorated. It’s the atmosphere – that’s what made The Leadmill so special.”

So says Will Penney, 23, who is just one of hundreds of people queueing up outside Sheffield’s famous venue on Friday night for one final time before it shuts its doors.

Waiting to get in to see Miles Kane perform, Will, who lives in Sheffield and who is originally from Northern Ireland, says he had always wanted to see Kane play at The Leadmill, so the fact he is the star of the final gig there is “very fitting”.

This last event comes at the end of several years of legal argument involving the venue – and once Kane has left the stage and a few final club nights have been held, The Leadmill will close in its current form.

While Electric Group, which owns the site, has promised it will remain a music venue with the “coolest bands” taking to the stage in a refurbished building, fans waiting under The Leadmill’s landmark red neon sign for the last time say it is the end of an era.

Will says that while other venues feel “forced”, with “neon signs everywhere”, The Leadmill has always been something different.

“That’s the charm. It doesn’t feel forcibly made for people our age,” he says.

Meanwhile, Vex Deane, 20, who moved to Sheffield from Braintree in Essex, says Friday night’s gig is “like a goodbye, like a funeral”.

“That sounds really dark, but you want to have a good party afterwards. It needs a good send-off,” she says.

Also queueing to get in is Sarah Pruim, 24, a freelance music photographer, who says she has travelled up from London for “the final send-off for such an iconic venue”.

Originally from Chicago, and visiting The Leadmill for the first time, Sarah says: “It feels like such an important part of the music history that is kind of being lost.

“I think it’s an important day to reflect on the importance of these spaces for a lot of different people – and for art.

“That needs to be in the forefront of people’s minds.”

Sarah adds: “I do shed a tear to think the original historic venue, as it was for so many years, is changing over.

“I think [they should] prioritise it as a space for smaller artists to have a voice.

“Where are the next Arctic Monkeys going to be performing if we lose these venues?”

Arctic Monkeys, as well as Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker, Richard Hawley, and many other musicians, all credit The Leadmill as a key part of their early careers.

Amber, 16, a young musician from Blackpool, says she had hoped to perform at the Sheffield venue one day.

“Young and upcoming artists need a place to start out, and when places like this are [changing], it’s not giving people like us a chance,” she explains.

“When there’s less opportunities, and places are getting shut down, I think it’s scary.”

Charlie and Violet, both 17, say they have been to gigs at The Leadmill roughly every month for the last few years and say the change is “heartbreaking”.

Violet says they had signed “every petition, replied to every email, multiple times” to try and keep The Leadmill in its current form.

“Losing it is going to have a big impact on Sheffield,” she says.

“I don’t think we’ll recover from not having it, to be honest.”

However, Charlie, who says he also attended lots of gigs with his mum who used to work at The Leadmill, says he is trying to stay optimistic about the future.

He says he hopes the site will remain an indie venue with small bands on the stage.

“If it needs refreshing to keep people our age coming and still seeing live music and new bands, that might be better for the local scene,” he adds.

“But I think it’s perfect as it is.”

As the house lights were on ahead of Miles Kane taking to take to the stage for The Leadmill’s final gig, the venue was buzzing in every sense.

People wearing one of a limited run of t-shirts marked with “the final show” listed on their backs were spread across the dance floor, unable to move without a drink being spilt in the sold-out 900-capacity venue.

Reverend and the Makers and Pulp blared through speakers warming up the crowd, which in reality needed no more encouragement.

When the lights went down, line by line, the crowd in unison sang every single word. Loudly.

This wasn’t any old gig, it was the last gig.

For more than an hour the crowd was in Kane’s hands, and when he did bow out, everyone stood still – because that was it.

No shuffle for the exit – everyone stood there realising: this is it, the end of The Leadmill.

And then Frank Sinatra’s My Way came on and friends hugged, people pulled out their phones to record the moment and a couple snogged on the dancefloor.