Unite the Union (City of Sheffield) Band recently teamed up with one of the UK’s most influential musicians Jarvis Cocker for the opening night of ‘DocFest’—Sheffield’s documentary film festival.

The Big Melt

Based at the famous Crucible Theatre, Jarvis provided a live soundtrack to the film ‘The Big Melt’ — a documentary using archive footage of Sheffield steelmaking.

The occasion celebrated 20 years of hosting ‘Docfest’ and the 100th anniversary of the invention of stainless steel—something which the name of Sheffield is now synonymous.

Soundtrack

The live soundtrack was provided by Jarvis and other Sheffield musicians including Richard Hawley, members of Pulp, a string quartet and a youth choir.

Jarvis told The Guardian newspaper: "I only hope that we can pay proper homage to the extraordinary individuals featured in this footage. Our aim is to melt faces (and hearts) and to blow minds — with maybe a bit of smelting thrown in for good measure."

I only hope that we can pay proper homage to the extraordinary individuals featured in this footageJarvis Cocker

Voodoo Ray

Unite’s segment came on the acid house track ‘Voodoo Ray’, with band spokesman David Lindley telling 4BR: "Although it was all arranged at short notice, we ran through the piece with Jarvis in the Yellow Arch recording studios in Sheffield a couple of nights before the event.

The biggest obstacle was working out the logistics of getting on and off stage and synchronizing our playing with the film in a darkened theatre.

In the event it all went off without a hitch and the band was the talk of the evening amongst the festival goers."

The band will later be recording the track with Jarvis for the official release of the documentary.