About The Scottish Music Scene

A band completes and releases an album respectively; they then decide to embark upon a UK tour in support of their latest musical creation; which UK cities are most bands likely to visit? It is not a rarity for UK-based and even European bands to stretch their tours to over 15 venues throughout the country. 12 out these 15 gigs will typically be located in England.

Music fans in Wales, Northern Ireland and in my home country: Scotland, tend only to be graced with a band’s presence for a single evening. This is if a band does decide to visit which sometimes causes me wonder if the vast majority view Scotland as England’s hat. I cannot deny that concentrating on the single and largest nation for live performances is the most efficient touring plan in the eyes of both bands and touring managers; but should bands would bust-a-move between all four more often, it would be much appreciated by the UK’s smaller nations.

Though I live in Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital city, I make regular journeys to Glasgow in order to catch the Scottish leg (usually a single date) of a band’s tour. The common occurrence of bands using Glasgow as their only Scottish date is not of great inconvenience to me, so I won’t send hate mail to all my favourite artists at this point in time. The locations of Scottish music fans in and around the remaining Scottish cities are however disregarded as they continue to make their quests to the kingdom of Glasgow. Dundee, Aberdeen and most notably Inverness are susceptible to musical droughts; this is not to mention the remainder of Scotland, north of Inverness. A friend of mine in Inverness had recalled the performances of some now-big names (Enter Shikari, Biffy Clyro) at the Inverness Ironworks; this is the primary venue for Inverness. Observing the upcoming gigs in Kerrang! magazine each week, it appears that only small-scale bands are hitting the smaller Scottish cities. The event schedules of fine venues such as the Aberdeen barfly and Dundee Fat Sam’s are often thin compared to that of Glasgow Barrowlands or the ABC. Much like my nearest venue in Edinburgh, The Picture House, I feel that these stages are collecting dust rather than the blood, sweat and beer of some long-awaited artists.

Seven of the ten gigs I attended last year were in Glasgow, the remaining three, to my delight, were in Edinburgh. Unsurprisingly, all these bands were British. I was treated to the music of the seven seas by Perth pirate metal band Alestorm in Studio 24 and later witnessed St Albans post-hardcore trance quartet Enter Shikari at the makeshift venue of the Edinburgh University student union: The Potterow. At the Corn Exchange, I caught metalcore band Bullet For My Valentine, who had travelled all the way from the green pastures of Wales. These non-Scottish bands had made a point of visiting those UK cities which they had missed in the previous tour which was both awesome and fair to fans. I had not originally realised the impressive amount of venues which Edinburgh had been concealing. One by one I had come across intimate venues such as The Caves, Cabaret Voltaire and The Liquid Rooms (which was later closed due to fire and flood damage). Any of these venues are suitable locations for bands to rock Scotland with but most would sooner travel to The Cathouse or King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, because blessing Glasgow’s ears now appears to be the most feasible choice; the high frequency of visiting bands has ultimately supplied the city with the best Scottish music scene.

Christina Scabbia, the gorgeous front woman of Italian metal group Lacuna Coil reminded me that many bands would assume that the UK is just an unusual nickname for England as she expressed to some 1500 Scots that: “It’s so great to be back England!” at the front of Edinburgh’s Corn Exchange. Everyone including myself accepted the mistake and continued to head bang. One certain individual however informed Ms Scabbia of her mistake, explaining that her and her fellow band mates were in fact in Scotland and closed his announcement by requesting that she remove her clothing. Surprisingly, I am cleaning up the language which this gentleman had originally used to express his point.

I have not by any means lost faith in Edinburgh as many colossal names have reminded me that there is in fact a music scene. With Oasis set to play at Murrayfield Stadium and Crosby, Stills and Nash announcing to storm Edinburgh castle, it has become apparent that Edinburgh’s title as Scotland’s capital does hold some relevance to bands. I am also looking forward to experiencing Edinburgh’s music scene by performing with my band later this year; hopefully to an audience which does not consist of a tumbleweed and several sheep.

Fans will continue to commute to cities for the mutual love of music much like musicians do with countries. Along with the rest Edinburgh’s music lovers, I will not remain in the city and lament that I am being deprived of music as yet another band hits Glasgow. Enthralling live performances as well as original and diverse genres of music are solid reasons to justify an outing to Glasgow in order to catch the Scottish leg of a band’s tour, even if we do die a little inside when each band praises ‘Glasgow’ for attending.

Posted on June 14, 2009 | Filed Under Music

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