Gigs

Pump up the volume - Music venues round up

29 Jul 2008

Glasgow and Edinburgh play host to some of the hottest hangouts in the UK. David Pollock explores the very best and handpicks the gigs you cannot afford to miss.

We Are the Physics

22 May 2008

Modesty rarely prevails in the braggadocio-strewn world of rock music so when this frisky quartet named their debut album We Are the Physics are OK at Music it seemed for a minute that being demure and was going to overtake skinny jeans on the fashion…

Tom Waits to play Scotland

21 May 2008

Tom Waits, legendary singer-songwriter, actor and raconteur is to perform two shows at the Edinburgh Playhouse on 27 and 28 July. Waits has not played in Scotland in almost 21 years, when he last appeared live it was also at the Playhouse in November…

Pete Doherty announces Glasgow Barrowland show

12 May 2008

Babyshambles frontman Pete Doherty is out of jail and getting back to doing what he does best: playing live to an adoring audience

Wake the President

Glasgow School of Art, Saturday 5 May

10 Apr 2008

There seems to be two video cameras and – at least – three photographers trained on the stage throughout Wake the President’s set. Such fastidious attention would typically be seen as overzealous outwith the upper echelons of Glasgow’s musical…

Sex Pistols review

SECC, Glasgow, Sun 18 Nov

20 Nov 2007

They were never gonna provide the filth and the fury of their 70s heyday, but there are few bands that stand for an entire genre as succinctly as The Sex Pistols so resolutely stand for punk. Fair enough, a 30th anniversary tour (marking the release of…

Hitlist - the best gigs

Recommended

1 Nov 2007

* Ian Rankin's choice Idlewild and The Twilight Sad Yes, we could have picked a number of other homegrown treats of early November, but instead, we are going for the final night of this tour, a band at the top of their game, joined by arguably the…

Beirut - gig preview

1 Nov 2007

Thoughts of the opposite sex, soft drugs and shoplifting tend to occupy the mind of your average 16-year-old drop out, but New Mexico dreamer Zac Condon was no normal teen. Upon prematurely ditching education, he, his ukelele and trumpet headed across…

Bill Carrothers Trio - gig preview

1 Nov 2007

American pianist Bill Carrothers has never played in Scotland before, but he has earned a reputation not only as an inventive jazz improviser, but also as an ambitious creator of unusual and ambitious large-scale projects linked to historical subjects.

Futuristic Retro Champions - gig review

Popshop@ABC2, Glasgow, Fri 21 Sep

1 Nov 2007

Originally started as an ‘art college project’ (ie ‘skive’) in late 2006, Futuristic Retro Champions have sprouted arms, legs, wonky keyboards and a barrowload of bona fide electro-indie-pop crackers over the last year. The Edinburgh six-piece have also…

Robyn - gig review

1 Nov 2007

Since storming to number one earlier this year, Swedish pop star Robyn isn’t that worried about being remembered for her brief dalliance with the charts in the 90s. ‘It was such a long time ago I don’t know if people remember,’ she says of her old hit…

Simba and Jae P - gig review

Bongo Club, Edinburgh, Fri 19 Oct

1 Nov 2007

Playing a support slot for grime star Wiley was the perfect opportunity for these two Scottish-based rappers to showcase themselves, and that’s just what we got – not so much a full and fulfilling set from each, more a little taster of what each can…

The Beecake - gig review

The Loft, Glasgow, Fri 12 Oct

1 Nov 2007

At last! Scotland has its very own film star vanity project band, and – as is the unspoken tradition with such things – they’re not quite as good as everyone might hope. To be fair, though, Billy Boyd’s Beecake were playing an acoustic charity set for…

The Changes - gig review

Barfly, Glasgow, Mon 8 Oct

1 Nov 2007

They say that democracy only works in principle rather than practice. Well, I ask the jury, have any of these people ever been to see The Changes? The Chicago four-piece put forward a pretty compelling case that an unequivocally democratic swapping of…

The Proclaimers - gig preview

1 Nov 2007

Whichever way you look at it, it’s been an astonishingly successful year for The Proclaimers. It’s 20 years since the Reid twins’ groundbreaking appearance on The Tube led to a string of hits, but 2007 finds their stock at its highest ever level. First…

Bela and Iain Archer

3 Jul 2007

INDIE FOLK Glasgow-based Icelandic singer/songwriter Bela’s debut album Ticket for a Train didn’t enjoy anything like the response its fantastically warm, woozy folk pop merited upon release a year ago. Watching him pick away contently at an acoustic…

Autumn music special - live highlights

18 Sep 2006

Jurassic 5 More of that proverbial classic rap, in spades. Carling Academy, Glasgow, 6 Oct.