What’s On

This event has been rescheduled from Wednesday 16th April. All tickets remain valid.

“…a muscular slug of sugar-coated power rock” – Q Magazine

October Drift have gained a strong word-of-mouth following since exploding onto the music scene.

Despite the early success of their incendiary debut singles – receiving support from Steve Lamacq, John Kennedy and Q Magazine to name but a few – and a string of sold-out gigs, this band still remain something of an enigma.

October Drift’s music is similarly ambiguous, characterised by their signature wall of sound guitars, soaring, ponderous vocals and driving, urgent drums.

The band have gained a reputation for delivering blistering, high-energy live shows, and we can’t wait to welcome them back.

Live Laugh Love. It’s a phrase you might encounter in a certain type of cursive on the wall of a certain type of home. On the opposite end of the mood board, it’s also a stick-and-poke tattoo on Chastity Belt guitarist/vocalist Julia Shapiro’s left ankle (just below a highly improvised Shrek), and the title of the band’s fifth album. It’s fun, it’s funny, but it’s also sincere, not unlike the band’s history – a joke that became real because it was always real – and the enduring bond that has been their band’s foundation for the past 13 years.

In their decade-plus together, the four-piece – Shapiro, Lydia Lund (guitar, vocals), Gretchen Grimm (drums, vocals), and Annie Truscott (bass, vocals) – have created a resonant body of work. The early days of “Nip Slip” and “Pussy Weed Beer” (hits from their iconic debut full-length “No Regerts”, which recently celebrated 10 years) and the “Cool Slut” era of 2015’s “Time To Go Home” were raucous bonanzas of dry wit and self-evident feminism. A newfound gravity on 2017’s “I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone” shifted the lyrical mood toward introspection as they continued to refine their trademark sound: lush intertwining guitars, meticulous rhythms, a careful balance of melancholy and optimism. Two years later, the dreamy Chastity Belt marked a renewal of vows to their musicianship and friendship, each member coming into their own as artists, convening with a fresh perspective on collaboration.

Price includes a 50p venue levy

“Bambara have evolved from Birthday Party-ish post punk to the more melodic Birthmarks. Letters To Sing Sing thunders along like Fontaines DC, Face Of Love’s crepuscular funk is laced with MBV-style guitars while Elena’s Dream haunts with Twin Peaks disquiet. An enthralling fever dream of an album. ****” – MOJO

“Birthmarks” is a reincarnation of sorts for the trio – twin brothers Reid (vocals) and Blaze Bateh (drums), alongside childhood friend William Brookshire (bass) – altogether. Five years removed from “Stray”, and three from their 2022 EP “Love On My Mind”, “Birthmarks” inevitably arrives with the weight of a new chapter after a lengthy absence. Long ago having established their brand of magnetic darkness – equally formed by the grit of their adopted New York City home and the mysterious corners of the Georgian swamps that raised them – Bambara found themselves in a period of slow, laborious evolution. Birthmarks emerges directly from the band’s favoured aesthetics and themes but captures them with a new sense of sonic adventurousness and thematic subtlety, resulting in a collection of songs that are somehow both the band’s most apocalyptic and most poignant.

Emerging as the most exciting homegrown act to come out of the midlands in over a decade, overpass unite singer and guitarist Max Newbold, bassist Indie Armstrong, guitarist Elliot Rawlings, and drummer Jake Bishop. The band formed through a series of serendipitous connections and a shared appreciation of arena-sized indie rock, leading them to sell out a string of ever increasing capacity shows in the UK’s second city.

With a growing fanbase despite little music out, overpass continued to make waves in the Birmingham music scene, bolstering word of mouth support. 2021 saw a trio of singles featuring high-octane performances and emotionally relatable, down to earth lyrics, helping turn their initial following into a bona fide fanbase. “We didn’t expect to sell out shows so quickly” says Elliot of early gigs at Dead Wax followed by two nights at the Sunflower Lounge in January 2022, “but Birmingham’s been amazing to us. The support from the local scene and our fans here’s just incredible. It’s a place that really nurtures creativity.”

Already selling more tickets than a lot of their major label contemporaries, overpass’ dedicated following feels like a refreshing counterpoint to culture’s current obsession with online metrics. “We have big dreams and goals,” Max promises. “It’s great to have loads of views on a video or something. But, like, what does it actually mean? When you see loads of people in front of you singing your songs back – that’s real. It’s tangible. It’s authentic. And that’s what overpass is all about.”

Sam Scherdel (TBC)

Taking their name from an antiquated and somewhat charming Irish term for lout, ruffian, or street urchin, Gurriers formed in January 2020, initially comprising Dan Hoff on lead vocals, Ben O’Neill on guitar and backing vocals, Mark MacCormack on guitar, Pierce O’Callaghan on drums and Emmet White on bass, who has since amicably left the band and been replaced by Charlie McCarthy.

Hailing from various parts of Ireland, Gurriers met in Dublin. They believed they were destined to connect creatively in a meaningful way, so they formed a band. We don’t need to dwell too much on how events in early 2020 temporarily stalled their progress. “All we wanted to do was be back in a room together and practice,” Dan Hoff recalls. “I remember one stage screaming into my pillow because of the extended lockdowns.”

Instead of doom scrolling on their phones, baking banana bread, or bingeing on box sets, Gurriers seized an opportunity to hone their vision and advance their ambition. Over numerous Zoom calls, they meticulously discussed every single aspect of the band, plotting strategies at a time when venues, studios, and rehearsal rooms were shuttered shut. The silence spurned the fledgling group on to make a bigger, more beautifully abrasive noise.

Miki Berenyi Trio are Miki Berenyi on vocals/guitar (Lush), Kevin ‘Moose’ McKillop on guitar (Moose) and Oliver Cherer (Gilroy Mere, Aircooled). The three musicians first worked together during Piroshka’s 2021 tour; Miki and Kevin being founder members, Oliver coming in on bass to replace Mick Conroy (Modern English) who had moved to the US.

When the global pandemic made touring impossible, Miki spent the lockdown months writing her memoir, “Fingers Crossed”, released in 2022 to widespread acclaim. To provide some musical accompaniment for the string of book events and signings, Miki Berenyi Trio was formed.

The band has developed a momentum of its own, touring with the Wedding Present and Gang of Four and sold out London co-headline show with Aircooled.

Price includes a 50p venue levy

Will Anderson needed to call a timeout. It was October 2024, in the studio of modern DIY hero Amos Pitsch, clear across Wisconsin from the small town where Anderson was raised. As he has done for every increasingly absorbing Hotline TNT album, Anderson arrived at the studio with eight, maybe nine demos he liked, leaving himself room not only to expand their sound but to write a few tracks in the room, too. But this time, and for the first time, the quartet that had toured for the last 10 months as Hotline TNT had come with Anderson, somewhat unexpectedly. He had intended to make one more album his way – holing up with a producer and building songs piece by piece, as he’d done for the 2023 breakthrough “Cartwheel” – before making Hotline TNT a full-band affair in the future. But guitarist Lucky Hunter, bassist Haylen Trammel, and drummer Mike Ralston wanted in. Anderson relented.

As they cycled repeatedly through one of Anderson’s demos, they couldn’t unlock the way to play it, the power and pattern that Hunter’s and Anderson’s guitars needed to share. When Hunter began playing a part that had nothing to do with that song, Anderson dipped, heading upstairs with his guitar in a spell of mild pique and fatigue. When he emerged a few hours later, he’d written “The Scene”, a spiralling-and-stomping new song about wanting someone to throw a tantrum on your behalf. The rest of Hotline TNT, meanwhile, had written a lunging and moody instrumental, guitars pulled as tightly as razor wire against Motorik drums. Anderson resisted at first but then helped finish “Break Right”. Both songs are now tentpoles of Raspberry Moon, the most sweeping and compelling Hotline TNT album to date and, crucially, the first built by a full band. Oh, the other song they couldn’t get right? No one remembers its name.

Massive night of two of the biggest bands to spring out of the 1990s! Not Radiohead celebrate the music of Radiohead in this, the 30th anniversary of the era defining album, The Bends, while Nerdvana bring the stagediving and moshing peak of Nirvana to life!

Hotly-tipped Cambridge-based seven piece The Orchestra (For Now) have released their first ever song “Wake Robin”.

Winners of this year’s edition of Green Man Rising, opening the main stage at the acclaimed tastemaker festival, and fresh off the back of two sold out shows at London’s St Pancras Old Church, the band have also just announced their next London headline at the ICA on 10th April.

“Wake Robin” should not be the work of a band releasing their first song. A dextrous multi-limbed assault on the senses, “Wake Robin” is an 8 minute odyssey, welding orchestral movements with rapid fire drumming and a preacher on the mountain top vocal delivery. The Orchestra (For Now) emphatically bring all these strands together with a confidence and delivery that is a testament to their months of live experience and careful development of their sound.

“The Orchestra (For Now) are further cementing their prime position among next year’s ones to watch.” – DIY Magazine

“It feels no exaggeration to say that the bands debut is one of the most highly anticipated of the year.” – So Young

“A completely distinctive sound, hugely progressive in scope and tone.” – Clash Magazine

Price includes a 50p venue levy.

A night celebrating two of the biggest bands to explode out on to the scene in the last 20 years!

It is just over 20 years since The Killers released Hot Fuss and we are celebrating a classic record right here! As well as all the bands other classic hits.

support from SIMULATION MUSE – a celebration of Muse

“Our main value is just do what you love for the love of it. If you do that, then anything that comes along with it is just a bonus.”
You can expect to climb aboard the good spaceship Amplifier and ride the titanic waves and grooves of triumph.