Festival leaves ska on London

Among the lineup for London International Ska Festival 2019 are an unlikely group of Italian lovelies from Bologna who have a rocksteady grip on reggae and roots rhythms that would bring rays of Jamaican sunshine to even the darkest fog-filled London haze. A 10-piece female big band with a shared love of beer and Jamaican…

Manchester goes punk for Easter

Heading into its fifth year, the Manchester Punk Festival takes place over Easter weekend and features some of the best bands currently bashing about on the UK and international punk circuit. Organised in tandem by TNS Records, Anarchistic Undertones and Moving North… the event is a three-day, multi-venue festival that takes place from 19-21 April…

Chepstow ready for Winter’s End

For four days in April, Chepstow becomes a very progressive town when Winter’s End takes over The Drill Hall with an eclectic mix of international rock theatre. Following a resounding success last year, the Winter’s End Progressive Rock Festival returns to the town in 2019 from 4-7 April. The pre-festival party on the Thursday night…

Mac-stock worthy of support

The fourth edition of Mac-Stock will be raising funds for two great causes when it gets underway at Warsop in March. The brainchild of former Mansfield man Graham Parker who started it in memory of his father Roy who lost his battle with cancer in 2013, the one-day festival raises money for Macmillan Cancer Support…

Jazzing up Bristol music scene

Bristol’s long association with jazz dates back to the 1950s and ’60s when a dizzying array of stars such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald regularly played to sell-out audiences at Colston Hall, today Bristol International Jazz and Blues Festival keeps that tradition going for four days in March. Taking place from 21-24…

Minehead makes a great Alternative

If you grew up in the 1970s and ’80s the names Angelic Upstarts, Peter and the Test Tube Babies and The Members will probably mean a lot more to you than some of the new bands making waves on radio stations around the country at the moment. It was a great era for music and…

Blackpool in for a Revival

Blackpool is seeing a Revival of alternative rock in March, when some of the UK’s biggest tribute bands descend on the town for two days reliving the best sounds from the Nineties and Noughties. Following the success of the inaugural event in March last year, Revival Music Festival returns to the impressive Norbreck Castle, Blackpool,…

Gizeh reason to visit Eeklo

Launched in February 2018 to celebrate Manchester label Gizeh Records’ diverse roster, Gizehfest has quickly expanded to two editions for 2019 with a second event in Eeklo, Belgium, in February alongside the core event at the Soup Kitchen in March. Known for not focusing on any one genre of music, Gizeh is bringing together an…

Head to Brighton for Mutations

Flamingods and TVAM are the latest acts to join the lineup for this year’s Mutations festival in Brighton. The one-day event takes place at Hansen Hall, Portslade, on the outskirts of Brighton on Saturday, 23 February 2019. Founded in 2015, Mutations has grown to become one of the south-coast’s most sought after events and this…

It’s Glastonbury Calling

From humble beginnings in 2016, Glastonbury Calling is expanding to two days when it returns to the town next month for its fourth year. When organisers decided to put on a multi-venue event in a quiet Somerset town during the off-season it was unsurprisingly met with a little scepticism but with a lot of hard…