Good Evening, this is my first show of 2026” announces Ricky as he takes the stage. First solo show yes, but certainly not the first performance.

Well, here we are in 2026 and the Gig Mobile hits the road again on the first of many trips this year. It’s a cold one with temperatures in and around the freezing mark but its dry so the huskies can stay wrapped up in their kennel for another while.

Review by Damien Doherty for MPM It’s that time of year again when the world descends on Dublin to commemorate the late great Phil Lynott. And it’s a big one this year, being the 40th Anniversary of Philo’s passing. Organiser Lloyd Barber has laid on a splendid affair with gig’s at the Button Factory and the 3Arena on the 3rd …

Christmas fever has taken over Belfast City Centre this weekend as the panic sets in for the last of the gift shopping. Things are a little more laid back in East Belfast however where It’s night three of four for the third run of Ricky Warwicks’ annual shows at the Sanctuary Theatre.

It’s Christmas Party night in Belfast Rock City judging by the number of groups wandering about with bottles of beer, dressed to kill and ready to rock’n’roll all night and suffer all the next day. 

Steel Panther didn’t so much play the Sylvee as turn it into a neon-lit shrine to bad decisions, Aqua Net memories, and jokes that absolutely should not be repeated to your HR department.

Jon Otway has never fitted neatly into anyone’s idea of how a pop star should behave, look, or even survive, and that is precisely why he is still here, still touring, still selling merch, and still smashing microphones with his forehead nearly five decades after most sensible people would have taken the hint and stopped.

Norwegian Stoners,Bokassa, crashed into the O2 Academy Birmingham like a shot of adrenaline, thirty minutes of scrappy, hyper-riffed stoner-punk that felt equal parts pogo and power-chord sermon.

Review & Photography by Manny Manson KK’s Steel Mill is already alive when Urne walk on, and they don’t soften the room or ask for permission. They step straight into it, four songs, no padding, no chatter, and a sound that immediately tells you this band understands weight, space, and patience. Urne formed in London in 2016, and while they’ve …

Slipping into December’s double digits we return to one of our favourite Cardiff venues – the Tramshed – for further escapism from the over-commercialised aspects of the season.

Hometown show for the Downpatrick three piece and a packed Ulster Hall is ready for them to hit the stage, now I have to say these guys are not a band I have massively listened to over the years so let’s see what the set has to offer!! 

The O2 Academy Birmingham had been straining at the seams long before the doors opened, the kind of anticipatory pressure you can feel in the concrete under your boots and in the jittering conversations that ricochet around a sold-out venue when people know they’re about to witness something they’ll remember for years.

If you were trying to get through Nottingham, on Saturday evening, you’d have wondered what the hell was happening! Gridlock was the order of the day; the air was full of tension as the traffic, slowly, inched past the Motorpoint Arena like a drunken slug.

Brighton seafront in December: windswept, salty, and bracing enough to wake the dead. Step inside Concorde 2 though, and you’re hit with a different kind of storm, one of sweat, heat, and glorious noise. This tiny Victorian venue, with its 600 capacity frame

And so, we venture to Glasgow on the first Saturday of December 2025 to bear witness to Katatonia’s UK & Europe 2025 Tour in support of their excellent studio album “Nightmares as Extensions of the Waking State”. 

Just like that and we’re into the final month of 2025, the year is winding towards the inevitable finalities of the beholden calendar. Above, in between brooding clouds, the moon is waxing towards its concluding fullness until the new year whilst all the while, as we enter the darkest weeks nature can assemble, the winter solstice approaches.