The second-to-last night of King Tut’s Summer Nights brought a bill that refused to sit neatly in one genre. With iwanttobeonTV, Szliszka and Bad Gravy supporting Roller Disco Death Party. I saw the night move through drum and bass, punk, electronic music and alternative rock, building towards what could only be described as a full-blown party. I had never seen any of the acts live before, so I went into the night not really knowing what to expect.

Opening the night were iwanttobeonTV, the duo of Scott Bathgate (Drums) and Maddie Cassidy (Vocals). Describing themselves as sending “a signal from the post-human abyss to the people”, their sound is an energetic collision of drum and bass, rock and punk.

They immediately brought a dancefloor mentality to King Tut’s, bringing people towards the stage early in the night.
Their set was relentless, with Maddie making full use of the stage and constantly engaging with the crowd. Alongside their own material, they threw in a surprising cover of Britney Spears’ Toxic, which fitted perfectly into their chaotic, high-energy sound.

I really enjoyed their set, which was full of bright, colourful lighting and upbeat music. I especially liked Scott’s high-energy drumming paired with Maddie’s physical stage presence.

Next came Szliszka, who shifted the atmosphere. The three-piece kept a deliberately mysterious, DIY aesthetic, with synth-heavy electronic textures, alternative rhythms and guitar-led sounds taking centre stage.

Their performance was less about traditional stage theatrics and more about creating a vibe with the music. The stage was kept in near darkness for much of the set, broken up by flashes of strobe-like lighting and a projector shining on the back wall. I think the lack of visibility encouraged the crowd to let go, with people dancing freely in the darkness.

Then came Bad Gravy, an acid funk band who seem to have created their own universe before even releasing music. Their conspiracy-inspired mythology is matched by an electronic dance-punk sound that is impossible to ignore. Before the gig, I was told that Bad Gravy are not to be missed, and now I see why.

With five members filling the stage, there was no shortage of movement. Every member brought serious stage presence, but the main vocalist was particularly impossible to look away from, at many points diving over to the barriers and directly singing into the crowd.

The energy spread quickly. The room was dancing, jumping and shouting along, remarkably familiar with a band that has yet to release music officially.
Moving to Australia was a particular highlight, and judging by the reaction, I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

With previous appearances at 1990, Nice N Sleazy and King Tut’s, and an upcoming Tenement Trail gig, Bad Gravy look set to keep building their unique gravy empire. After seeing them live, I think I’m officially on the “Gravy Train”.

By the time Roller Disco Death Party took the stage, King Tut’s was packed.

The Glasgow duo of synth player and songwriter Neal McHarg and drummer Amelia Briggs Haldane have built their sound around electronic music made for the dancefloor. Their live show takes that concept and pushes it further. Roller Disco Death Party’s sound sits somewhere between The Chemical Brothers, Justice, Soulwax and Primal Scream. Their music feels rooted in dance music but still has the rawness and attitude of a live band, particularly through Amelia’s live drums.

“Big beat music to sweat to” is an accurate description. From the opening moments, the room was moving. Hands were in the air, people were jumping, and almost nobody seemed interested in standing still.

Amelia and Neal are stationed parallel to each other on the stage, half facing the crowd, half facing each other. Their playing was so energetic that it felt like they were dancing along with the crowd rather than just performing for it.

Keep The Balance was a standout. Driven by deep synth-pop textures and Amelia’s live drumming, the track sent a pulse through the room, with the crowd immediately recognising it and throwing themselves into the rhythm. It captured exactly what Roller Disco Death Party do well.

Just Another Saturday Night was another highlight for me and, it seemed, for much of the crowd. After the gig, they told us the vocals came from a friend who happened to be at a recording session, and the vocals were inspired by a recent night out they all had at The Berkley Suite. That small story gave the track an added sense of Glasgow nightlife tied directly into the music.

After an hour-long headline set, the band returned for an encore, joined by members of Bad Gravy for their own rendition of Blur’s Girls & Boys, which they recently recorded a live video of and released on YouTube. And the party didn’t stop there. Roller Disco Death Party headed downstairs for an afterparty DJ set.

That night, Roller Disco Death Party headlined King Tut’s and hosted a packed-out party.

Article: Samantha McBride

It took a certain amount of nerve, aged 15, to walk into my sixth-year common room with a fresh copy of that week’s NME tucked under my arm, pink-and-green colour-panelled hair framing a face that had not yet learned the consequences of having opinions, and announce to the popular boys: “You know, Linkin Park are okay, but we should really listen to Deftones.”

This was not a casual recommendation. This was diplomacy. This was foreign policy. This was me, in hair that borrowed directly from The Raveonnetts, attempting to influence the cultural direction of an entire school.

A few days later, one of the popular boys — eyebrow piercing, Eminem wardrobe, the full early-2000s uniform of adolescent menace — swaggered into the common room and announced that he had listened to Deftones.

“You were right,” he said. “They’re cool.”

And that was it. My teenage street cred, previously hovering somewhere around “girl with alarming hair”, had been catapulted into the stratosphere.

I have never quite recovered from the power.

Because Deftones were the band for that particular teenage feeling: the horrible, thrilling, chemically unbalanced cocktail of lust, rage, insecurity and the absolute certainty that nobody — NOBODY — could possibly understand what you were going through. Their music sounded like somebody had taken teenage angst, put it in a blender with sex and existential dread, then poured the result over a giant Marshall stack.

Deftones were never simply heavy. They were heavy in the way a teenage crush is heavy. Heavy in the way waiting for somebody to text back is heavy. Heavy in the way standing outside the gym hall hoping a particular person might appear is heavy.

They were music for wanting to kiss somebody and punch a wall at exactly the same time.

I first encountered them in that great late-‘90s/early-2000s alternative-music ecosystem when Zane Lowe ruled supreme from the brown couch on MTV2’s Gonzo. This was before streaming had turned discovering music into an algorithmic vending machine. Back then, you watched Gonzo because there was a genuine possibility that Zane might put something terrifying, brilliant or completely life-changing in front of you.

Deftones fitted that world perfectly. They could appear alongside a band like The Rapture and somehow make perfect sense. The Rapture had the angular, sweaty, art-school disco; Deftones had the black hole. One made you want to dance in an East London warehouse, the other made you want to stare moodily out of a bedroom window while pretending your life had already become a tragedy.

It was the golden age of MTV2, when music television still felt like a secret society and Zane Lowe was its hyperactive high priest.

Fast-forward several decades and I am standing at Summer Sessions in Edinburgh, looking around at an audience largely composed of people in their late 30s, 40s and 50s.

The great joke is that we have all grown up.

The music hasn’t.

Or perhaps, more accurately, the music has grown up with us.

The best fashion accessory at this Deftones show appears to be a younger relative. Daughters, sons, nieces, nephews — a whole second generation being introduced to the same dangerous little secret that once made us feel impossibly cool.

I brought my niece.

Before Deftones, IDLES have the unenviable task of getting an audience emotionally prepared for a band who have built an entire career out of making misery sound sexy. Fortunately, IDLES are basically a human defibrillator. “Mother”, “Danny Nedelko” and “I’m Scum” land with the force of a politically motivated riot.

My niece is hearing IDLES properly for the first time and, after “Never Fight A Man With A Perm”, gives the verdict: “Yeah, Aunty Ang, they’re pretty cool.”

She is also fascinated by guitarist Mark Bowen, who looks, as she astutely observes, a bit like George Harrison if he’d gone backpacking in India, accidentally settled in a Brighton squat, attended art school and never quite found his way home.

She may have a point. She may also have the gift for writing reviews.

IDLES are old favourites here at the Golden Bough— we’ve seen them repeatedly in Glasgow — and their appearance makes perfect sense tonight. There is a beautiful polarity between the two bands. IDLES attack the world head-on; Deftones retreat into the psyche. One kicks the door down. The other locks it behind you and turns the lights off.

Joe Talbot gets the crowd down on their knees for “I’m Scum”, and the subsequent mosh pit erupts with all the restraint of a family discovering that somebody has cancelled Christmas.

Yet there is tenderness, too. Talbot spots a young fan’s placard thanking IDLES for opening up conversations around addiction and alcohol consumption. His response — that we’re all on a journey, that we make mistakes, that love can help us pick ourselves back up — is genuinely affecting.

Then comes the Palestinian flag and the “Free Free Palestine” chant.

IDLES have done what good support acts should do: they’ve primed the audience, but they’ve also left us with something to think about.

Then, at 8:45pm, the lights go down.

And suddenly I’m 15 again.

The opening bars of “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)”, from 1997’s Around the Fur, roll across the Royal Highland Centre.

Honestly: be still my beating heart.

There are songs you remember, and songs that remember you. “Be Quiet and Drive” belongs to the latter category. It is teenage escape disguised as a guitar song — the desire to get into a car, shut the door, put the music up and drive until your parents, your school, your town and your embarrassing adolescent self have all disappeared in the rear-view mirror. It sounds like headlights on an empty road and a bad decision that will probably turn out to be one of the better decisions you’ve ever made.

Chino Moreno is immediately everywhere, running from one end of the stage to the other, bounding up and down the platforms with the improbable grace of a ballerina who has been raised by wolves. He is a genuine showman, and there is something wonderful about watching him occupy the stage rather than merely stand on it. Behind him, the VJ visuals turn the enormous stage into a constantly mutating fever dream.

The rest of the band provide the architecture for this madness. Lance Jackman is the great slab of granite at the centre of the sound, his guitar turning riffs into geological events. Abe Cunningham is the engine room, bringing the muscular precision that stops all this atmosphere floating away into the ether. Frank Delgado is the ghost in the machine, supplying keyboards, samples and electronic textures that make Deftones sound less like a conventional metal band and more like a nightclub sinking slowly beneath the ocean. Fred Sablan, touring on bass, brings the subterranean weight that makes the whole thing physically register. And Chino, naturally, is the voice and the face: whisper, howl, seduction, menace and melancholy all sharing the same microphone.

Then comes “Cherry Waves”, from 2006’s Saturday Night Wrist, and suddenly the whole show becomes less like a rock concert and more like being swallowed by a very beautiful ocean. The song is sensual, melancholy and narcotic, Chino’s vocals drifting over the guitars like smoke under a locked bedroom door. This is the peculiar Deftones trick: they can make heaviness feel intimate. The guitars don’t simply crush you; they seduce you before doing it.

“Around the Fur”, from 1997’s Around the Fur, brings the brutality back. The title track sounds like adolescence with the safety catch removed. It is sweaty, ugly, thrilling and gloriously unrefined, a reminder of the period when Deftones could make a riff sound like somebody had just kicked through a bedroom wall. And yet even now it doesn’t feel like heritage rock. It feels alive. Most of us have aged. This song has apparently been drinking blood.

Then “Rosemary”, from 2012’s Koi No Yokan, stretches the evening out into something almost cosmic. This is where Deftones demonstrate that their real superpower isn’t heaviness but atmosphere. The song expands slowly, like a galaxy opening behind the stage, while Chino darts from platform to platform. His movement is extraordinary: part rock frontman, part ballet dancer, part man who has just remembered he left the oven on.

Then “Rocket Skates”, from 2010’s Diamond Eyes, hits like a car crash in expensive sunglasses. It is pure kinetic energy, Carpenter’s guitar providing the wreckage while Cunningham drives everything forward. If “Rosemary” is space, “Rocket Skates” is the asteroid hitting it.

And then comes “Sextape”, also from Diamond Eyes, and suddenly Deftones remind everyone why they have always been more interesting than the lazy nu-metal tag suggested. “Sextape” is erotic without being sleazy, intimate without becoming twee, and beautiful without losing its darkness. It sounds like perfume in a dark room. It is desire rendered as atmosphere rather than adolescent locker-room boasting. In the audience, people who now have mortgages, children and possibly a preferred brand of dishwasher tablet are singing along as though they’re 19 again. This is what Deftones do: they make respectable adults temporarily unavailable to themselves.

Then comes “milk of the madonna”, from 2025’s private music. This is important because tonight isn’t merely an exercise in nostalgia. Deftones have nine studio albums behind them, but private music demonstrates that they are not content to spend the rest of their career wearing the corpse of their younger self like a particularly fashionable coat. “milk of the madonna” sits comfortably among the older material — psychedelic, heavy, strange and sleek — proving that the band can still create music that feels like Deftones rather than music that sounds like a tribute to Deftones. The band’s own description of private music calls it both a psychedelic voyage and a skull-rattling wallop, which is annoyingly accurate. 

Then they disappear.

The crowd waits.

And the encore begins with “Change (In the House of Flies)”, from 2000’s White Pony.

By now the sun is beginning to rise.

It is an almost indecently perfect visual metaphor. “Change” has always been about transformation, and here the night itself is transforming above us. The darkness slowly drains from the sky as the opening notes hang over the audience.

When I was 15, change was what I wanted.

Now, as a grown woman, change is something I occasionally regard as a personal attack.

But the song still works.

It is the sound of realising that the person you thought you would become isn’t necessarily the person standing here now — but that the teenager is still lurking somewhere underneath. Possibly demanding better lighting.

The tenderness lasts approximately four minutes before “Lotion”, from Around the Fur, arrives like a brick through a conservatory window. The song is the antithesis of middle-aged reflection. It is raw, confrontational and gloriously adolescent. If “Change” is the adult looking backwards, “Lotion” is the teenager shouting from the bedroom: “I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.”

And then, finally, “7 Words”, from 1995’s Adrenaline.

The beginning.

The primordial Deftones.

It sounds exactly as it should: furious, physical and slightly out of control. After three decades, it still has the energy of a teenager throwing their bedroom furniture through the window because their mother has asked them to turn the music down.

The crowd goes feral.

And that is the perfect ending.

Because Deftones haven’t simply soundtracked one generation’s adolescence. They’ve somehow preserved it.

The girl with the pink-and-green hair is still here. She’s just got older. She’s acquired responsibilities, and a wider world view and considerably less colourful hair. The eyebrow-pierced boy from the sixth-year common room is presumably somewhere with a mortgage and a LinkedIn account.

But play “Be Quiet and Drive” and we’re all back there.

The gym hall.

The school corridor.

The NME under the arm.

The impossible crush.

The conviction that nobody understands you.

The desperate desire to get away.

The strange belief that music might save you.

It probably can’t.

But on a night like this, it can certainly remind you that the person you were has never completely disappeared.

They’ve just been waiting for the right guitar riff.

And when that riff arrives, they are ready, they are dancing, they are chanting back every word – with a new generation looking in with adoration in their eyes.

Words: Angela Canavan

Images: Tim Craig

There are certain bands you go to see because you like them, and then there are bands who have been living rent-free inside your emotional nervous system for decades. The Cure are firmly in the latter category. My 20’s were soundtracked shuffling across the hallowed grounds of the ABC dance floor with hair back combed within an inch of its life et al Robert Smith himself as the synthe overture of “Just Like Heaven” played in the background. Seeing them live is like being invited into a beautifully decorated mausoleum where everyone has agreed that heartbreak is actually quite fun if you put the right bassline underneath it…

Last night at Edinburgh’s Royal Highland Showground, the bill was an unusually good exercise in alternative darkness. Just Mustard opened proceedings, followed by Slowdive and then, in a particularly welcome surprise, Glasgow’s finest, Mogwai. It was an evening that seemed to have been curated by someone with a very specific understanding of the human capacity for melancholy.

I’ve been low-key obsessing over Just Mustard since 2018’s Wednesday, and seeing them here felt like watching a band who have spent the last few years turning post-punk into something stranger, heavier and considerably more nocturnal. The Dundalk five-piece sound like the aftermath of a bad dream in an abandoned factory: industrial textures, bruised guitars and Katie Ball’s voice drifting through it all like a radio transmission from another dimension. “Death” remains my ultimate favourite, but “We Were Just Here”, from their more recent work, shows how much their sound has expanded without losing that deliciously bleak centre. There is a post-punk blues running through Just Mustard that feels particularly potent in the current Irish scene. Everything coming out of Ireland at the moment seems to have a little more darkness in its bloodstream, and Just Mustard are among the most compelling examples.

Next came Slowdive. Not quite our thing, perhaps, but unquestionably a band worth seeing live. Their shoegaze is less a performance than an atmospheric event: layers of guitar rolling over the crowd until individual songs become almost indistinguishable from weather. “When the Sun Hits” would have been the obvious emotional landmark, that glorious collision of beauty and distortion, and they did exactly what Slowdive do best — create music that feels as though it is simultaneously arriving and disappearing.

Then came the surprise: Mogwai.

Somehow I had managed not to know Glasgow’s finest were playing, which is the kind of pleasant error one would like to make more often. For a band whose music contains no conventional lyrical narrative, they drew a sizeable crowd and proved an almost perfect precursor to The Cure. Mogwai have always understood the dramatic power of volume and repetition: they take a simple musical idea, feed it steroids and send it charging towards the horizon. “God Gets You Back”, from The Bad Fire, was a particularly fitting reminder of their ability to turn instrumental music into something enormous and emotionally cinematic.

And then there was The Cure.

My fellow photographer friend summed it up perfectly: The Cure make music for people who are moody.

They do. But they also make music for people who have discovered that being moody is much more enjoyable when several thousand other people are doing it with you.

The venue was sold out, and Robert Smith and his fellow middle-aged goths proceeded to deliver one of the best Cure shows I’ve seen in a long time. I had reservations after seeing them at Bellahouston Park seven years ago. That show had suffered, for me, from problems of pacing and timing, with a noticeable slump developing through the middle. Last night there was none of that. The set had shape, momentum and atmosphere. It knew when to brood and when to let the roof come off.

“Pictures of You”, appearing second, was an immediate statement of intent. Taken from 1989’s Disintegration, it is one of The Cure’s great songs of memory: seven minutes of looking backwards while pretending you’re not. The guitars shimmered and the song seemed to stretch across the Showground like an old photograph left out in the rain. This is what The Cure do better than almost anyone: they turn nostalgia into a physical substance.

“High”, from 1992’s Wish, followed, and suddenly the gloom had a pulse. It is one of those Cure songs that manages to be melancholic and euphoric at exactly the same time. Their music has always understood that happiness and sadness are not opposite ends of a scale; sometimes they are sitting in the same room, drinking from the same bottle.

Then came “Lovesong”, and this is where the whole goth enterprise starts to reveal its rather embarrassing secret.

It is incredibly romantic.

Written by Robert Smith for Mary Poole, his long-time girlfriend and future wife, “Lovesong” is perhaps the most straightforwardly sincere thing The Cure ever committed to tape. It comes from Disintegration, an album otherwise overflowing with emotional catastrophe, yet here Smith strips everything back and simply says: I love you.

There is something almost revolutionary about that level of sincerity.

We like to think of goth as music about death, but at its heart it is music about wanting something so badly that the possibility of losing it becomes unbearable. The black clothes are merely camouflage for an enormous sentimental heart.

And nowhere is that more obvious than “Just Like Heaven”, which appeared at number 11 in the set.

Written for the same woman who was then Smith’s high-school sweetheart, the song was inspired in part by a trip to the coast and the physical delirium of kissing her so intensely that he felt as though he might pass out. Robert Smith, it turns out, did not write the song because he was haunted by the void.

He wrote it because he was winching his girlfriend.

If that isn’t romance, I don’t know what is.

The song comes from 1987’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, an album that remains one of The Cure’s great acts of stylistic indecency: pop, goth, psychedelia, funk, new wave and pure romantic absurdity all thrown together and somehow making perfect sense. Live, “Just Like Heaven” remains almost unbearably joyous. Everyone knows it. Everyone sings it. For three minutes, several thousand people who presumably spend most of their lives pretending not to care about anything are openly screaming about love.

Another stand out track; “Three Imaginary Boys”, taking us all the way back to the band’s 1979 debut. It was remarkable hearing such an early Cure song inside a set that also contained the huge, mature melancholy of Disintegration. The contrast showed just how far they have travelled.

“A Night Like This”, from 1985’s The Head on the Door, arrived its saxophone adding another shade to that wonderfully nocturnal Cure palette. With Gabriel Cooper on sax, it had the atmosphere of a smoky bar at 2am, when everyone has either fallen in love, had their heart broken or is about to make an appalling decision.

Then came “A Forest” it was one of the evening’s defining moments.

If you want to understand The Cure, “A Forest” is the instruction manual. It comes from 1980’s Seventeen Seconds, and its bassline seems to walk permanently towards something it knows it will never find. The guitars circle, the drums stalk, and Smith’s voice sits somewhere between detachment and desperation. It is music about searching without any expectation of finding the thing you are looking for.

The genius is that it makes the search sound magnificent.

The title track of Disintegration arrived, and the show briefly became less a concert than an emotional landslide. The song is eight minutes of beautifully controlled collapse. It is The Cure at their most excessive and their most honest, a song that doesn’t merely describe falling apart but seems determined to demonstrate the process in real time.

And then, eventually, the hits were saved for the encore.

“Lullaby”, from Disintegration, opened that final stretch with one of The Cure’s strangest triumphs: a song about nightmares that somehow became a pop classic. It is sinister, sexy, funny and deeply weird, which is essentially the Cure manifesto in four words.

“The Lovecats” then arrived, the gloriously unhinged 1983 single from the Japanese Whispers period. It sounds like The Cure briefly escaped from their own funeral, wandered into a jazz club and decided to have a bit of a laugh. The fact that it works so well after nearly two hours of gothic drama is another reminder that The Cure have never been interested in being miserable in a straightforward way.

“Let’s Go to Bed” followed, one of the great moments of Cure self-sabotage. After the monumental bleakness of Pornography, Smith and company essentially responded by making a bizarrely seductive synth-pop song. It was a refusal to remain trapped inside their own gloom. The Cure have always known when to pull the curtains back and let a little sunlight into the crypt.

Then came “Friday I’m in Love”.

If there was any remaining doubt that this was a show built as much on pure enjoyment as nostalgia, it evaporated here. From 1992’s Wish, it remains one of the great happy songs by a band who have spent most of their career making sadness sound glamorous. The entire place seemed to briefly forget that it was supposed to be a gathering of people dressed almost exclusively in black.

Finally came “Why Can’t I Be You?”, from Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, and it was the perfect closing statement: ridiculous, exuberant, romantic and completely without shame.

The Cure have always understood that darkness needs light. Without it, there is no contrast, no drama and ultimately no fun. They can spend eight minutes disintegrating emotionally and then follow it with a song about Friday, dancing, kissing or going to bed. That is why they have survived where so many of their contemporaries have become museum pieces.

This was a show studded with gems throughout, but it was also pure nostalgia. Not the dead-eyed nostalgia of a heritage act going through the motions, but the intoxicating kind: the nostalgia of hearing songs that have accompanied entire sections of your life and discovering that they still work.

That is The Cure’s particular magic.

They make private misery communal. They take heartbreak, lust, regret, longing, ageing and romantic obsession and turn them into something you can sing at the top of your lungs with thousands of other people. They make the humiliations of being human feel grand.

Robert Smith looked, as ever, like a man who had been dragged reluctantly from a Victorian séance to headline a rock concert. But the band sounded anything but old. The music still had teeth. It still had romance. It still had that peculiar ability to make sadness feel like a place worth visiting.

Because perhaps that is what goth really is.

Not death.

Love.

Painfully, embarrassingly, magnificently romantic love.

We are all goths at heart.

And last night, in Edinburgh, The Cure reminded us why.

Words: Angela Canava

Images: Ryan Buchanan

Walking from the East Gate into the Royal Highland Centre for one of their most highly anticipated Summer Sessions of the season, there was already a buzz around the site. Biffy Clyro are a band on fire at the moment with a wide ranging fanbase and the steady stream of people walking into the grounds reflected that. The sun was shining, the cider was flowing, and a myriad of food trucks were on hand to keep energy levels up. The hot sugared doughnuts smelled especially enticing…

First band up was Scottish alt-rockers, Swim School. It was great to see a rising Edinburgh band in the support slot and they certainly got the energy moving in the right direction! Every member of the band brought their A-game in what was one of their biggest shows to date and it looked clear they have a big future ahead of them.

Next up was popular English rockers, Nothing But Thieves. Their opening song “Stray Dogs” began with a pulsing rhythm that seemed to steadily ramp up the audience before smashing straight into the rest of the set. Singer Conor Mason’s epically strong vocals were complimented by the electric musicianship of his bandmates and together they made sure the audience was thoroughly primed for the headliner. 

Honourable mention goes to the man in a pink costume with an inflatable flamingo around his waist. As he crowd surfed his way to the front, and the camera operator gave him a close up on the big screens, Mason voiced what we were all thinking, “Well that was fucking weird!“. The crowd burst out laughing and cheered loudly. Legend!

Then, with the stage drenched in dark red light and smoke hanging in the air, Biffy Clyro exploded on to the stage with fireworks booming overhead! It was a spectacular entrance!

Maverick frontman Simon Neil, topless, tattooed and kilted, owned the stage and had the crowd captivated for the entirety of Biffy’s set. The flamethrower he brandished during “Who’s Got A Match?” made the performance even more exciting. Shout out to the creative and technical team who designed such an incredible set and light show, including the pyrotechnics. The production really elevated the performance and experience for fans. The whole evening was consistently visually stunning. 

The mood shifted to something more considered and quiet during “Space“, with warm yellow lights glowing across the stage like candles or stars as the audience swayed. A plane passed overhead, and it was hard not to wonder how magical the stage must have looked from 3,000 feet.

The emotional high point came with fan favourite, “Machines“. With the staging stripped back and a violinist adding to the emotion, the crowd sang every word. Friends, couples and families leaned into each other. For a beautiful moment, everyone felt completely connected.  

“Bubbles” prompted another mass singalong before the band headed towards the finale. “Many of Horror” was a gorgeous choice for the closing song, the audience once again singing every word before Neil delivered the immortal sign-off:

“We are. Biffy. Fucking. Clyro!”

Even then, the crowd wasn’t finished. Walking away from the darkened stage to catch buses, trams or to be picked up by loved ones, those heading back through the East Gate spontaneously broke into a rendition of, “You’re Just Too Good to Be True” by Frankie Valli.

It was a fitting end to a night that combined huge rock songs, spectacular production and genuine connection between band and audience. Biffy Clyro brought the fire, literally, but ultimately it was the fans singing those songs back to them with such feeling that made the evening so perfect.

Words: Kim Sabatelli

Images:  Euan Robertson

It was a balmy summer evening at the Kelvingrove Bandstand, with the smell of food drifting through the air as gig goers bought cold pints and friends saved seats for each other in anticipation of the night ahead. Tonight was to be no ordinary concert; not only were we celebrating 30 years of headliner Idlewild, but it was also lead singer Roddy Woomble‘s 50th birthday.  

Support act Sorren Maclean, who has co-written several of Roddy Woomble‘s solo albums, travelled over from Mull to perform. The band provided a gentle start to proceedings, though it wasn’t without some Scottish humour; when someone in the crowd shouted, “Glad you’re here!”, Maclean’s dry “Aye, thanks” raised a laugh from the crowd. 

When Idlewild took to the stage, the affection between the band and the Glasgow crowd was obvious from the start. Dedicated fans lined the barrier, while Roddy reminded everyone that Idlewild had played the Bandstand ten years earlier. When he asked who had been there, the response was enthusiastic (and also gives away the age of most of the people there. Yes, myself included…).

As it was Roddy’s birthday, there was an extra sense of celebration. The crowd sang “Happy Birthday”, while former bassist Bob Fairfoull, who had turned 50 the previous week, also received a birthday mention. Before the encore, a birthday cake even appeared, accompanied by a round of, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”.

The band themselves were on form. Rod Jones, on guitar and backing vocals, was like a man possessed. Throwing himself around the stage, he was incredibly exciting to watch. 

Roddy’s rapport with the audience was equally impressive. The crowd sang enthusiastically along to “American English”, creating a beautiful moment made even more atmospheric by the creative lighting from the stage. 

The set covered Idlewild’s career and the appearance of Hannah Fisher, the fiddler who played earlier with Sorren Maclean, added another interesting dimension to some songs.

There were a few memorable crowd moments too, including one enthusiastic fan being reminded by security that seats are for sitting on, not standing on… Mostly though, the audience simply sang, danced and celebrated a band with whom many clearly have a long history.

During the encore, “Let Me Sleep (Next to The Mirror)” produced a huge cheer before the band eventually played their final song, “In Remote Part/Scottish Fiction”, while a sea of phones glowed like candles across the Bandstand.

On a beautiful Glasgow night, it felt like a celebration shared between band and audience, and a very good reason to save those seats for your pals!

Article: Kim Sabetelli

 

Tomorrow’s Harvest, a new weekender from the team behind Edinburgh’s Cowgate Block Parties, will launch this August at Glasgow’s legendary QMU.

 

 

 

The event will take place on Friday 28th August (doors 5pm) and Saturday 29th August (doors 4pm) with early bird weekend tickets on sale now. Tomorrow’s Harvest will feature three stages of the most exciting touring and local acts all under one roof, alongside live DJs and with food options available.

 

The Friday bill will be headlined by eclectic synthpop act Working Men’s Club, their first performance in Scotland in several years. Saturday’s headliner, Manchester punk-jazz band Maruja, are returning to Glasgow after a sold-out show at The Garage in late 2025.

 

Other artists featured in the first wave announcement areThistle., Bathing Suits, Sex Mask, Speedial, Mleko, San Jose, Tina Sandwich, Fog Bandits, Pleasure Trail, Awful Eyes, and Heavy Weather, with more to be announced. 

 

The QMU has a long history of legendary live performances, and has played host to artists such as SLADE, Genesis, Thin Lizzy, Queen, The Fall, The Pixies, Nirvana, Paul Weller, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Coldplay, Biffy Clyro, Franz Ferdinand, Belle and Sebastian and many more through the years.

 

Speaking about the event, Tomorrow’s Harvest booker Craig Gornall said:

 

“We’ve had two sell-out events this year already at the Block Parties through in Edinburgh, and we can’t wait to bring some of the hottest new artists through to Glasgow as well.”

 

“The QMU has introduced generations of Glaswegians and students from further afield to their new favourite band, and we want to continue that brilliant legacy with our new weekender Tomorrow’s Harvest.”

 

“We’re thrilled to have Working Men’s Club and Maruja as headliners for Tomorrow’s Harvest, but we’ve got some excellent local talent on the bill too. Glasgow has one of the best local music scenes in the country and it’s always worth celebrating.”

 

Early Bird Weekend tickets are available now from £40, with individual day tickets going on sale Wednesday 15th July at 10am. 

 

Friday headliner Working Men’s Club

 

There is a contradiction at the heart of Caribou. Dan Snaith makes music that feels as though it was engineered for the small hours, for blacked-out rooms where the outside world dissolves into pulse and repetition. Yet here he was beneath an amber Glasgow sky, the last of the evening sun hanging over the Clyde like a streetlamp that had forgotten to switch itself on. It was beautiful, certainly. It just wasn’t quite the right lighting.

Electronic music is funny like that. Some artists thrive in daylight. Caribou belongs to the nocturnal species.

That slight mismatch between atmosphere and setting was the evening’s only real flaw. Everything else landed with astonishing precision.

The show, billed as part of an all-day event, felt less like a festival than a waiting room. People milled around politely enough for the earlier acts, but the tide unmistakably turned once Caribou’s equipment appeared. I had assumed Snaith’s club alias Daphni might provide the warm-up, particularly given the set’s affectionate nod to that project with Waiting So Long. Instead it was AHADADREAM, whose buoyant, disco-infused selections kept bodies moving without ever pretending to be the main event. Good DJs know when to lead; great ones know when to get out of the way.

By the time the band emerged, Galvanizers Yard was close to capacity, the sort of crowd that doesn’t merely applaud songs but has quietly woven them into the soundtrack of its own life.

Caribou has always occupied a rare space in electronic music. Since emerging in the early 2000s, Snaith has refused to choose between the laboratory and the dancefloor, blending psychedelic rock, house, krautrock, IDM and pop into records that somehow satisfy both headphone obsessives and festival crowds. Albums such as Swim, Our Love and the recent Honey have earned him a reputation as one of electronic music’s most inventive composers, while his Daphni project indulges the more club-focused instincts that occasionally bleed back into Caribou’s work. 

The live band remains one of the finest arguments for seeing electronic music performed by humans rather than laptops. Alongside Snaith were Ryan Smith, John Schmersal and Brad Weber, whose interplay has been refined over years of touring. 

Special mention belongs to Weber. Watching him was like watching someone negotiate with time itself. His right hand darted between acoustic drums and electronic pads with metronomic certainty while the beat machine fired underneath, the two systems locking together so tightly they seemed less like man and machine than identical twins separated at birth. Every fill landed exactly where your body hoped it would before your brain had time to ask.

The setlist barely paused for breath. Volume and Climbing established intent before Bowls rolled into the night’s first eruption with Odessa. Few songs have travelled through Glasgow quite like that one. Long before it echoed around Galvanizers Yard, Odessa had already become a familiar visitor to dancefloors courtesy of countless sets from Glasgow institution Optimo. It was impossible not to smile at the sea of Optimo T-shirts dotted throughout the audience. One in particular read, “There’s no DFA without Optimo,” a slogan that felt less like fashion than local history stitched into cotton.

It was a reminder that scenes matter. DJs matter. The reason so many Glaswegians already carried these songs somewhere in their bones wasn’t streaming algorithms. It was years spent in dark rooms where Keith McIvor and Jonnie Wilkes patiently educated dancefloors one impeccable record at a time.

By the time Sun arrived, its ecstatic repetition became exactly what great repetition should be: not monotonous but medicinal. Like waves against a harbour wall, each cycle stripped away another layer of self-consciousness. Later came Never Come Back, Dear Life, Broke My Heart and Can’t Do Without You, each one provoking the sort of communal release that electronic music achieves at its best—not euphoria as escapism but euphoria as temporary citizenship.

Caribou’s songs rarely shout. They persuade. They accumulate. They circle the listener until resistance feels pointless.

As darkness finally crept across the Yard, the music seemed to expand into the space it had been waiting for all evening. You could almost hear the show becoming itself.

Had this concert happened two hours later, beneath genuine darkness rather than Glasgow’s lingering amber glow, it might have been transcendent. Instead it settled for being magnificent.

And hearing Odessa and Sun performed live, surrounded by thousands of Glaswegians who have spent well over a decade dancing to them in clubs across the city, felt less like attending a concert than finally meeting old friends in person. It was, quite simply, a privilege.

Article: Angela Canavan

It’s not everyday that bands from the land of Fire and Ice visit Glasgow, so tonight is something of a celebration — Virgin Orchestra back in town, three years after their first appearance. Nice N Sleazy’s crypt is the perfect venue forthis Icelandic trio; the lighting, mostly red with the odd flash of blue, only adds to the otherworldly pull of tonight’s set.

A Praying Mantis-like electric cello, an effects-laden guitar and vocals make for an unusual lineup, but the post-punk, electronic-pioneer-influenced music feels strangely familiar without ever settling into one shape. Velvet Underground, A Place to Bury Strangers, Warpaint, My Bloody Valentine, The Cure — all clearly in the mix, yet filtered into something that’s unmistakably Virgin Orchestra andnothing else. There are many avant-garde influences at play too, ones I won’t claim to be fully familiar with, but when you live in a place that’s in a gigantic sea, somewhere between New York and Glasgow, your reference points are global — and maybe that helps create a dark, emotionally uplifting wall of sound that goes well beyond the ordinary and everyday. Stefania holds centre stage, her slow, fluid movements as hypnotic as they are mesmerising. Starri’s guitar and soundtrack leads the musical adventure ,as Rún sits almost defiantly at her cello, occasionally leaving her position to take the mic and throw in some genuinely unexpected and joyous interplay. Half thetime I can’t tell if the lyrics are in English or Icelandic, and it barely matters — the immersive effect of the whole thing eclipses the individual parts. Feeling wins out over understanding, and the band is all the better for it.

Virgin Orchestra offer a truly unique soundscape and singular performance thatreally sets them apart , and their latest EP, ‘Let It Burn,’ backs that up — six songs that show real progress beyond their 2023 debut album. This run of shows wraps with a week-long stay in London, where they’ll keep working on the next release, before October sees them supporting Queens of the Stoneage in Reykjavik at the huge Laugardalshöll Arena.

Virgin Orchestra don’t visit our shores often, so keep your eyes peeled and make this one a must-see. They’ve grown into a genuine force, and it’s excitingto think where they go from here.

Words: Nick Tammer

Images: Chris Hogge

There comes a point in every great rock band’s life when they have to decide whether they’re still dangerous or merely dependable. Kings of Leon, once the greasy Tennessee outsiders who looked like they’d wandered off the set of That ’70s Show after a three-day bender, have long since crossed that bridge. At Bellahouston Park they looked less like Southern rock’n’roll misfits and more like moustachioed craft coffee evangelists who’d happily discuss the merits of single-origin Ethiopian beans over a flat white in Zennor Coffee.

Image isn’t everything, of course. But rock music has always been about illusion as much as sound, and somewhere along the road the Followill brothers traded menace for middle age. That’s hardly a crime. The question is whether the music still carries the weight.

For much of the evening, the answer was… almost.

Playing to a crowd approaching Bellahouston Park’s outdoor concert capacity of around 35,000, the audience turnout appeared close to a sell-out, with the field looking impressively full. The Glasgow faithful were clearly willing participants, but the band never quite gave them the sense that something unforgettable was unfolding.

The setlist was certainly generous, stretching across two decades and 24 songs, from Find Me and Taper Jean Girl through to staples like Pyro, Closer and Black Thumbnail. It read like the work of a band trying to satisfy every generation of fan simultaneously. That’s easier on paper than it is in practice.

Somewhere around halfway through, the performance settled into a predictable rhythm. Caleb Followill’s trademark elongated “woooah-oh-ohs” became increasingly prominent, accompanied by the familiar rock-star shuffle: pacing from one side of the stage to the other, shoulders back, microphone held low, the sort of choreographed nonchalance that has become almost muscle memory. It wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t particularly alive.

There was surprisingly little chemistry radiating from the stage. Between songs, the interaction rarely rose above standard festival script. A throwaway “That’s the best fans we’ve had on tour” landed with an audible shrug, while the inevitable “No Scotland, no party!” felt like another well-worn line retrieved from the touring playbook rather than a genuine moment of connection.

Visually, the production felt oddly caught between eras too. The dreamy star-field graphics might once have looked cinematic, but in an age where grainy VHS textures, analogue cameras and lo-fi aesthetics have become fashionable again, they seemed strangely dated rather than nostalgic.

The sound didn’t entirely help matters either. At points the mix felt thinner than it should have been, lacking the muscular punch that Kings of Leon’s catalogue demands. Songs like Fans and Beautiful War lost some of their emotional weight through a surprisingly tinny front-of-house mix.

Yet every so often the old Kings of Leon emerged.

The Bucket still swaggered. Four Kicks reminded everyone why this band were once impossible to ignore. Black Thumbnail retained its snarling edge. And Pyro remains one of modern rock’s finest slow-burning anthems.

Then came Knocked Up, Cold Desert and, especially, Arizona, proving that beneath the stadium polish there is still a remarkably gifted band capable of creating atmosphere without resorting to bombast.

The evening’s genuine turning point arrived with Use Somebody. Those soaring vocal refrains—the very thing that had begun to feel repetitive earlier in the show—suddenly found their purpose. Tens of thousands of voices took over, and for a few minutes Bellahouston became one enormous choir. It was one of the rare occasions where the band’s restrained performance actually worked in its favour.

Ironically, the biggest disappointment came right at the end.

Sex on Fire has become both Kings of Leon’s greatest commercial triumph and, arguably, their artistic burden. Watching thousands instinctively lift their phones as the opening riff rang out felt entirely predictable. It remains a colossal anthem…

But that’s precisely the problem.

For a band with a catalogue as rich as Kings of Leon’s, ending every show with the song that transformed them from respected rock band into global pop phenomenon feels increasingly unimaginative. It’s the safe choice rather than the brave one. You leave remembering the singalong instead of the band.

This wasn’t a return to the hungry, volatile Kings of Leon who once made Youth & Young Manhood and Aha Shake Heartbreak. Nor was it a cynical greatest-hits package from musicians going through the motions. It sat awkwardly somewhere in between: a hugely accomplished band balancing artistic credibility against the expectations that come with having one of the biggest rock hits of the 21st century.

The songs are still there. The craftsmanship remains undeniable. But the danger, the swagger and the unpredictable spark that once made Kings of Leon feel essential now surfaces only in flashes.

Bellahouston got exactly what it paid for: a polished stadium show packed with hits. It just never quite felt like witnessing a great rock band at full stretch.

Words: Angela Canavan

Images: Ryan Buchanan