It’s a beautiful evening as we make our way into Belfast to the ‘Oh Yeah Music Centre’ in The Cathedral Quarter for the first time.

On the evening of April 12th, the Limelight 2 in Belfast became a convergence point for three distinct flavors of black metal.

Review by Gary Spiller for MPM The tour that shouldn’t have been rolls into Swansea for a glorious homecoming embrace. Quite literally on the eve of a UK tour supporting South African gothic rockers The Awakening the rug was pulled right from underneath the feet of Welsh metallers Black Lake. With a short two paragraph-long statement the headliners announced a …

Now, if there was one artist who, over the last 12-24 months, has garnered attention and drawn an army of fans his way, it would be a young man in the form of Yungblud.

Some shows feel like a straight line from opener to headliner. This one felt more like a staircase, each band taking the night up another level.

In the last year or so there has been a huge buzz surrounding President, this is due in no small part to their anonymous identities, rapid rise to fame, and powerful sound, all of which have sparked intense curiosity and ongoing fan speculation - after all not many bands get to play their first show to a packed tent at Download.

Grammy-winning superstar Yungblud brought Idols: The World Tour home to the UK after a year in which he found acclaim in the US.

With a car full of enthusiastic revellers we head up the road to Belfast ahead of tonight’s gig to see the Welsh Metallers Florence Black and local rockers Trucker Diablo.

On the evening of April 3rd, 2026, Nottingham’s Bodega literally pulsed with anticipation, a sold-out crowd stood buzzing in the tight, intimate space as even more fans gathered to witness a trio of standout acts.

As the last echoes of Butcher Babies faded, the stage was cleared with military precision, monitors adjusted, pedals recalibrated, and the room holding its collective breath.

As the final reverberations of “Aurea” hung in the air, the stage fell into darkness. For a few fleeting moments, the O2 Institute felt like it was holding its breath.

Any night in Digbeth always carries a certain electricity, but tonight felt different and that was before a single note had even been struck.

There are shows you attend, and then there are shows that leave a residue on you. Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Physically. April 2, 2026, at Chicago’s Concord Music Hall was the latter kind. You didn’t just walk out remembering it. You wore it home.

The Scratch are a band that a good mate has raved to me about for a while now and unfortunately, when they came to The Nerve Centre in my home town of Derry, I was already going to see The Hot House Flowers and couldn’t make it.

The walk through the doors, past the merch in the downstairs room at KK’s Steel Mill has an intense inevitability, this is the smaller intimate stage, this is where the faithful come to pay homage through hail, rain, sleet, or snow.

Garbage and Placebo put in astounding performances for the legendary Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall series - at the invitation of guest curator Robert Smith.