We went to see Jake Bugg perform at the 02 Academy in Sheffield on Friday, and we didn’t come away disappointed!

By Jane Howkins

Despite the fear of covid 19 and the and overall sense of paranoia that seems to be covering Britain at the moment, there were a lot of people at the gig – far more than we would have expected if we’re being perfectly honest. It was great to see the British public pulling through in such a time of crisis, and we were pleased to see lots of signs everywhere telling people to wash their hands. One criticism we did find for the venue itself was that they were reusing peoples pint glasses and pouring drinks into dirty glasses for punters, which is something that shouldn’t be done anyway, especially with covid 19 doing the rounds.

Bugg came onstage half an hour late, which meant that we sadly had to miss the end of his set, however what we did see was fantastic. He played a selection of songs from across his musical career, with the crowd lapping everything up, and singing along in great style. He’s admittedly not very animated or chatty onstage, but that all adds into his stage persona, and you could tell that Bugg was very obviously pleased to be there.

He switched to an acoustic guitar halfway through the set, showing the versatility of his style and sound in one fell swoop, before arming himself once more with an electric guitar and heading back into the indie rock bangers that made Bugg so popular all those years ago. One thing that struck us was how good he is at playing the guitar. Obviously as a musician doing what he does for a living, we knew he must have some talent, but the gig only served to show how much he can shred, and this is something we’d like to see more of in future from him – perhaps the next album could be a heavy metal album!

All in all, it was a great gig, marred slightly by the show starting late and the lax hygiene standards displayed by the bar staff, but we would definitely want to go and see Jake Bugg perform live again, given the chance.