Scottish Live Music Highlights: August 2024

At the start of the month, festivals abound in Glasgow. core.’s celebration of noise takes place between The Hug & Pint and the nearby Woodside Halls (2-4 Aug) with Gilla Band, Empire State Bastard, Witch Fever and k.yalo making up a tiny fraction of the bill. Belle & Sebastian’s Glasgow Weekender takes over the entirety of the SWG3 complex (2 & 3 Aug) with B&S playing both days, while artists like CMAT, The Joy Hotel, Walt Disco, Callum Easter and more join them across the two days. On the same weekend(!), Bemz hosts and performs at the inaugural M4 Festival (3 Aug) at BAaD with Becky Sikasa, Sean Focus and ISO YSO on the lineup, alongside the promise of burgers, shawarma and lobster from local food vendors. Yum.

Later in the month, Scotland’s international conference of hip-hop and underground culture, PITCH takes place at Drygate (22-23 Aug). Numerous panel discussions will take place during the days while evening showcases will feature performances from Psweatpants, Paque, Big Blu and more. Bookending August nicely, the 31st sees the brand new Interesting Things festival taking place at Stirling’s Tolbooth featuring artists like ML Buch, Isa Gordon, Susan Bear and Konx-Om-Pax. And sidling giddily out of August, Sunday 1 September sees the bigger and better return of Edinburgh Psych Fest to the capital with Pigs x7, La Luz, NewDad, Lime Garden, Cloth and more playing the multi-venue epic.

Speaking of Edinburgh, there’s also the small matter of the Edinburgh festivals. The Edinburgh International Festival features a contemporary programme that includes Jordan Rakei at the Usher Hall (8 Aug), while Tirzah (19 Aug), Lisa O’Neill (21 Aug), Nadine Shah (22 Aug) and Bat For Lashes (23 Aug) all play The Queen’s Hall. Meanwhile the Fringe features interesting shows at the the Acoustic Music Centre at the Ukrainian Community Centre on Royal Terrace from the likes of Chloe Matharu (20 Aug) and Iona Fyfe (21-23 Aug). Fyfe also plays as part of the Wide Days showcases that form part of this year’s Made In Scotland programme. The annual conference hosts will platform a further seven Scottish artists – comfort, Gallus, Indoor Foxes, Nimbus Sextet, Gnoss, The Big Day and Zoe Graham – across two nights at La Belle Angele (14 & 15 Aug).

At the recently reopened Jazz Bar, The Gil Scott-Heron Songbook takes place from 10 to 14 August courtesy of local talent Aki Remally and Fraser Urquhart, while Press Start! A Live Video Game Music Experience is also worth checking out in the basement venue (7-9; 19-20 Aug). Elsewhere, Outwith Words sees the Tinderbox Orchestra and Loud Poets take over the Edinburgh Central Library’s Reference Library for a series of performances throughout the month (8-10; 15-17; 22-24 Aug), the Ligeti Quartet perform the music of Anna Meredith at The Queen’s Hall (16 Aug), and a collective of creatives from Scotland, Iran, Chile, Brazil, Yemen and Syria combine for The Other, a multimedia performance exploring culture and displacement, at the Scottish Storytelling Centre (14-16 Aug). There’s also a whole load going on smack bang in the city centre with the St James Quarter Sessions (16-25 Aug) featuring Scottish talent like DARA DUBH, Djana Gabrielle, EYVE, Fergus McCreadie, NATI., Kohla, Leif Coffield and more.

Outwith all of that, there’s tonnes more happening on a local level throughout the month. Sneaky Pete’s have their annual Central Belters series with Red Vanilla (8 Aug), Swiss Portrait (20 Aug) and Brodie Barclay and Nikhita (21 Aug) all playing, Alice Faye plays Ghillie Dhu (10 Aug) and Hamish Hawk plays an Assai Records outstore at The Liquid Room (31 Aug).

In Glasgow, both King Tut’s Summer Nights and The Hug & Pint’s endless summer series continue. Catch Lewis McLaughlin (10 Aug) and Carsick Charlie (15 Aug) at the former, and Zerrin (2 Aug), Hound (5 Aug) and Day Sleeper (13 Aug) at the latter. There are also local launches to check out from Tina Sandwich (Nice N Sleazy, 8 Aug) and Nightshift (Mono, 10 Aug), while a number of touring artists swing through town too. Our top recs include Deerhoof (Room 2, 1 Aug), Loyle Carner (SWG3, 15 Aug), Pixies (O2 Academy, 20 Aug), Souls of Mischief (Saint Luke’s, 21 Aug), The Postal Service and Death Cab For Cutie (OVO Hydro, 23 Aug), Killer Mike (QMU, 23 Aug), Yo La Tengo (SWG3, 27 Aug), and Sleater-Kinney (O2 Academy, 27 Aug).