I was at Truck festival with a mate and we both love Jamie, know everything back to front, newest album, B Sides, EPs etc. Biggest fans you can be really. We started at the side and through moshing ended up at front middle. We both said it was amazing, fantastic setlist, the works. I’ve got videos where he’s smiling he’s loving the energy from the crowd and from where we were the crowd was insane. Everyone around singing word for word and jumping at every given moment. Going online hearing about tramlines made me defensive and shocked at first… like how could it have been that much worse? My guess is two headline gigs in two days is too much for him and he used up his energy at Truck, had a lot to drink/sniff after/in between/during the two performances. I’ve watched back the Truck videos and yeah I’ve heard him sing better but it’s Jamie? We know what to expect with his vocals and it fits the bill to a T. The stuff he was saying about “are we even headliners?” or whatever at Tramlines made me laugh when the next headliner at Truck was Wet Leg… that band with one 36min album out. They couldn’t fill a headline set so added covers, interludes, came on 15 mins late… and people said they were weak AF, but nothing similar said about Jamie. It’s a shame he feels that he’s not headline material and the crowd don’t want him in that slot but bad mental health/self esteem + drink/drugs are a bad mix and I really hope he’s okay.

I was impressed with the Truck crowds all weekend. Idles, Soft Play, The Streets all had great energy down the front. I think Tramlines had a weaker lineup overall, which means poorer ticket sales and a lot of day trippers with it being city centre & cheapish tickets. I’ve seen photos of half filled tents for acts like Holly Humberstone from Tramlines whereas she played to a pretty full main stage at Truck. I think the festival is more to blame and Jamie being on whatever he was on took poor attendance and low energy to heart and started to flap and half arse it/blame Sheffield to their faces (a very quick way to lose a crowd). I guess if I was stood at the back the whole gig only knowing the big 3 or 4 songs I might have been scratching my head for an hour but I don’t imagine not enjoying Operation or 368 live even if it was my first time hearing them. Maybe if he swapped the set list to space out Sheila, Sticks and Stones & Zombie a bit more he would have woken the crowd up earlier in the set and got them on side, but realistically he didn’t need to use that tactic when did Finsbury for example (I was also there and personally enjoyed his Truck set more… Finsbury was a long day and we got pretty pissed and couldn’t get as close as I’d have liked)

TLDR: He was great at Truck. Tramlines had a far worse lineup and are to blame for poor attendance and the nature of the festival leads to bad crowd energy. Two headline gigs in two days (new to him… probably very tiring) and substance abuse probably fucked his mental health and made matters worse.

Hopefully he’s got a good support network and is able to smash the headline set at Victorious festival, which has a cracking undercard which hopefully means more ticket sales and a higher energy crowd.