Sheffield band choose iconic city location for music video

Sheffield City Hall's iconic art deco Ballroom, with its famous light-up dancefloor, plays a starring role in city indie rockers Milburn's latest music video.
Milburn at Sheffield City HallMilburn at Sheffield City Hall
Milburn at Sheffield City Hall

The video for Midnight Control, released this week, shows dancer Harriet Dakin decked out in full Northern Soul garb high-kicking and pirouetting across the vividly-lit glass panels of the dancefloor underneath the hand-painted ceiling and dramatic tall pillars and arches that give the ballroom its unique visual appeal.

It is well loved by local audiences familiar with it from club nights, live performances or the tea dances still regularly held there.

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Milburn's first video in eight years continues Sheffield musicians’ love affair with the venue and its dancefloor. Jarvis Cocker has spoken of spending his youth dancing on the illuminated panels and its influence can be seen in the videos for Pulp’s smash hits Disco 2000 and Common People.

Similarly, it was Milburn’s own experiences of the ballroom that lead them to choose it as a filming location. Visiting the set, frontman Joe Carnall recalled visits to nightclubs at the City Hall, saying “We used to come to Brighton Beach here, and we remembered the dancefloor… with the video focusing on one dancer we needed a visually striking location”.

Midnight Control is among the first new material released by Milburn since they reformed for a string of frenetic comeback shows in Sheffield back in April and May. They continue their warmly-received reunion with two arena shows confirmed in November as support for Manchester band The Courteeners.