What’s On

One of Cambridge’s most popular party bands returns for another night of fun!

Expect bangers. Expect mashups. Get ready to sing your heart out and dance ’til you drop.

8pm Anansi
9pm The Galapagogos

Headliner – Heidi Regan –
With more than a decade’s experience as a comedy writer, Heidi enjoyed a meteoric rise through the stand-up comedy ranks. She has won two of the most coveted prizes in comedy; the So You Think You’re Funny? title at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2016, following in the footsteps of comedians including Peter Kay, Aisling Bea, Alan Carr and Lee Mack, before scooping the BBC New Comedy Award prize in 2017. She has since gigged around the world, including performances at the prestigious Just For Laughs in Montreal and tour support for Joe Lycett, Phil Wang and Milton Jones.

Heidi will be joined by Kate Martin, Paul Merryk and Alex Freimuller. All brought together by Commoners’ resident MC Ali Warwood.

*line up subject to change*

A bubbling swamp curse of unholy rhythm, Jim Jones All Stars is the latest project from garage godfather Jim Jones (Thee Hypnotics, The Jim Jones Revue). Formed during the pandemic, it features The Jim Jones Revue members Gavin Jay and Elliot Mortimer, drummer Aidan Sinclair, veteran punk blues guitarist Carlton Mounsher (The Swamps), and a full horn section (Tenor Saxophonist Stuart Dace and Baritone Saxophonists Tom Hodges and Chuchi Malapersona).
After a midnight offering at the real crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the band made the pilgrimage to Memphis, Tennessee to record with Memphis Magnetic founder Scott McEwen (JD McPherson, Nick Waterhouse) in May of 2022.
The resulting LP “Ain’ No Peril” is a thick, greasy slab of Rama lama rhythm and blues that highlights some of Jones’s most inspired songwriting ever and features guest appearances from vocal powerhouse Nikki Hill and Oxbow’s Eugene S.
Robinson.
“When you’re recording within spitting distance of the Mississippi River, there’s something about that heavy Memphis air that changes the way that you hear the groove and grind,” says Jim Jones. ‘Ain’t No Peril’ captures that feeling and bathes in that magic.

The return of regular alternative bops. turn up in your spookiest costumes for a night of emo music that hasn’t been popular since 2006!

Returning to the Portland Arms once again, your favourite Cambridge band is back! Hot Content is hotter than ever with some exciting new faces joining the line up (alongside some exciting old faces). If you are fan of funky vibes, club bangers and high-energy hype, this is the night for you!

Come join us on 29th October for a night of horror at The Portland Arms, hosted by Cambridge’s favourite Wrestler Peter Nixon with a special twist.

Quiz starts at 7:30pm in our main bar, £2 per entry, with half the money going to our nominated charity Camtrust. Prizes for the best dressed team.

Reserve your table now!
https://theportlandarms.co.uk/wp/table-bookings/

Halloween comes a day earlier with a extreme night of Doomy Death Metal from local barbarians Terra, and Birdwitch from Norwich
Wednesday 30th October from 7.30pm
£10 On The Door
Terra are one of the most intangible and enigmatic presences to emerge from within the UK underground music scene in recent times. The Cambridge-based Atmospheric black metal trio, have worked dedicatedly to carve an atypical niche for themselves with their uncompromising musicality. Terra, find their creative self-possession through a sonic delivery that is as primal as it is serene, as mesmerizing as it can be suffocating. Saturating the listener in a miasma that serves to reach into the core of you, and communicate a shared experience of existentiality. (https://terra.band/music)
Alongside Terra are doomgaze band Birdwitch, who Birdwitch have been making a name for themselves since their dynamic, ethereal debut show and their first single release earlier this year

This event has been cancelled by the promoter. Any ticket(s) already purchased will be refunded by them.

Raised in the picturesque town of Aix-en-Provence in south France, ALIAS studied jazz at prestigious conservatoires in both Marseille and his hometown. But growing disillusioned with the strict rules being placed upon him, he decided to step out on his own, first to New York, then to Montreal, Canada, where he was enlisted as a contributor for hit TV shows including Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects, and worked as music director for Cirque du Soleil.

So as the pandemic hit, ALIAS hunkered down and made his debut EP, “It’s Not Funny So Stop Smilin'”, an ambitious work where the rulebook went sailing out the window. Released via Simone Records in 2021, his first EP was swiftly followed by “Jozef”, ALIAS’s acclaimed début album that happened to mark a drastic shift in tone in his music. Which brings us to “Embrace Chaos”, his latest opus, released in April 2024. Like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, ALIAS is both the genius and the monster on this record; the creator who hides behind the terror he’s unleashed.

Since winning Acoustic Magazine’s singer/songwriter of the year back in 2010 he has spent his time on the road, building a strong and loyal following all over the UK and beyond.

He was the first independent musician to sell out Bristol’s, The Fleece, (450 cap), and The Bierkeller, (750 cap), and SWX, (1000 cap).

Gaz has an impressive back catalogue of nine studio albums. The latest of which, Morning Walking Club, went straight in at #1 in the Official UK Folk Album Charts, #3 in the Official UK Indie Breaker Charts, #6 in the Official UK Download Charts, #10 in the Official UK Indie Album Charts, and even #37 in the Official UK Album Sales Charts.

Not a bad result for this fiercely independent musician, with no record label, no manager, and no agent – just a guitar, a van, and a steadfastly belligerent refusal to give in.

Gorilla Riot are a 4-piece dirty rock n’ roll blues machine from Manchester, England. Utilising a dual-pronged guitar attack with multi-part vocal harmonies; they play raucous blues-based rock, combining elements of grunge, stoner, and country to create a full-on high energy sonic experience.

Mainman, Arjun Bhishma, has surrounded himself with the best talent in Manchester to form Gorilla Riot.  Arjun, is joined by Charly T. (guitars & vocals), Deggy (bass), and Matt Talbot on skins.

They have built their reputation as a hard living, hard playing, genre-straddling rock n roll band that can draw forth tears of joy one minute and then the pain of a heart-felt lament the next.

Equally at home acoustically or electrically they have toured extensively with headline shows in Spain and France, and across the UK. They performed a sold-out album launch show for PEACH at Rebellion in Manchester in February 2020 but were then forced to cancel their album tour due to the covid pandemic.

However that didn’t stop them hitting the charts on the ‘Earache presents New Wave Of Rock N Roll’ compilation album, as well as NWOCR Vol 1 – both hitting Top #10 in their respective charts.

They released a 4-song acoustic EP entitled SOLACE in 2021, and now plan a new full-length studio album in 2024.

Vanessa Forero is back for her second tour of the year, having sold-out her last 16-date tour in May.
She’ll be leaving her jungle mountain home in Colombia again, this time to unite with ‘The Vines’ to bring you a night of big melody, soul-filled songs. Forero was recently featured on Ben Fogle’s ‘New Lives in the Wild’ and the pair performed their duet song live at her double sell-out show in London.
Fogle said about the show: “Vanessa had us all in the palm of her heart”. And the Director said: “Been a long time since I left a show feeling so great about life”.
So grab your tickets quick to join in a colourful, intimate night of South-Americana songs & wild stories.

https://open.spotify.com/artist/36ClgLzMtfs2QrfMBMtjrg?si=ktPw-nyjTFuR3Ll-sb4i4g

Joshua Burnell makes retro pop-rock for the modern world. His latest album, Glass Knight – which according to the Financial Times, “plays like a lost out-take from Spiders-From-Mars-era Bowie” – won over a lot of new fans upon its release in 2023. Expect hooky melodies drenched in warm, retro-synth textures, reverbing guitars, lush harmonies and words that make you think. Imagine The War On Drugs meets Genesis with “lashings of Peter Gabriel stylings” – The Guardian.

Steph Strings is an Australian based singer-songwriter from Melbourne, Victoria. With influences from the John Butler Trio, Kim Churchill and Ziggy Alberts, this young story-teller has combined fingerstyle guitar with bursts of percussion, Celtic, blues and folk. Her music and stage presence continue to captivate audiences around the world.

Following the release of her “LION” EP in 2023 Steph has toured both domestically and internationally selling out shows in Australia, the UK & Europe and Canada. Steph also supported The Cat Empire on their European Tour in 2023 as well as opening for Vance Joy across huge shows in Europe.