Hey! Manchester

Gustaffson released their critically acclaimed debut album Black & White Movie in March 2025, recorded with elbow’s Craig Potter at Blueprint Studios in Manchester.

With an emphasis on timeless storytelling and striking arrangements, it was a Rolling Stone album of the week and received rave reviews from Jo Whiley, Chris Hawkins, Guy Garvey and Gaby Roslin.

Formed around the songwriting talents of childhood friends Andrew Gower and James Webster, Gustaffson played a series of sold out shows Liverpool, Manchester and London in support of the album. This summer, they’re back in Blueprint Studios to record new music and will return to the stage for two celebratory shows to close out the year.

‘One of the bands to watch in 2025’ – Louder Than War

‘This will stop you in your tracks’ – Chris Hawkins, BBC 6 Music

‘Lush widescreen romantic tales which echo the like of Bruce Springsteen’ – The London Standard

Before Gustaffson’s performance, the audience will be treated to a Q&A with Andrew Gower and Craig Potter, hosted by Chris Hawkins (BBC 6 Music).

This show takes place at Low Four – a recording studio situated on Deansgate Mews in the Great Northern warehouse. This intimate venue features a fully stocked Cloudwater bar.

This is a 14+ show. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.

Gustaffson

Flowers

Gigs

Manchester

Low Four Studio

Carefully pushing the boundaries of what modern Irish folk can look and sound like, Junior Brother is an idiosyncratic, challenging, and richly lyrical singer/songwriter from County Kerry. His much-anticipated third album, The End, is due to arrive on 5 September via Strap Originals, a label forged with love by Pete Doherty of The Libertines.

In a statement from the label, Strap say: ‘We’re beyond excited to have this extraordinary Irish artist join our label. One of the most unique and powerful voices out there.’

Junior Brother shared his excitement about the signing: ‘I’m delighted to be bringing my record The End out on such a great label – I look forward to sharing the same roster as such favourites as Peter Doherty, Real Farmer, Warmduscher and loads more. Excitin’ times ahead!’

Following the success of his 2024 single Take Guilt, Junior Brother offers another taste of his upcoming LP with Small Violence, a powerful track that addresses the growing influence of misinformation and the escalating wave of conspiracy-fuelled hatred.

Speaking about the new track, Junior Brother says: ‘Small Violence follows a character pulled in by a small few who enjoy using violent words to stoke real violence further down the line. The intro riff was heavily inspired by the Opening Titles of The Blood on Satan’s Claw, a Folk Horror from 1971 which I highly recommend to anyone except the sensible.’

Special guest is Pearl Fish.

This is an 18+ event

Junior Brother + Pearl Fish

Junior Brother - Witches Willow

Pearl Fish

Junior Brother

Gullivers

Will Varley returns with his seventh album, Machines Will Never Learn To Make Mistakes Like Me, to be released 30 May 2025 on MNRK Music Group, home to the likes of The Lumineers, Gregory Alan Isakov and Shakey Graves.

To celebrate, Will has announced even more UK dates to add to his World Tour including shows at the UK’s very best independent venues.

Inspired by his natural habitats of the East Kent Coast and the US Midwest, these songs are rich, lyrical tales that speak of hard touring, relationships on the rocks and the rebuilding of minds. Featuring some very special guest appearances including Billy Bragg, Eleni Drake and Bastille’s Dan Smith, the album continues Varley’s decade long exploration of the human condition, this time focusing on society’s ever-present threat of impending apocalypse, how we marry this with the mundane and the minutiae of our everyday lives and how we can find hope.

Produced at his ramshackle studio deep in the Kent swamps, alongside long-time friend and collaborator Tom Farrer, the album’s pallet marks a significant change in musicality, bringing a rich and luscious production to many of the songs and bringing Varley’s lyrical landscapes to life in full colour.

‘I wrote these songs in empty dive bars and hospital waiting rooms,’ Varley says. ‘I wrote them while sitting in maternity wards, hotel lobbies, motorway service stations and broken down tour buses in the dead of night.'

Special guest is Chloe Hawes.

Will Varley + Chloe Hawes

Will Varley - The Man Who Fell to Earth

Chloe Hawes

Will Varley

Night & Day Café

Ríoghnach Connolly and Honeyfeet return in 2025 with Honeyfeet Presents: The Heads, Hearts and Hooves Tour, a bold and celebratory chapter in the journey of one of the most electrifying and genre-defying live acts performing today. Following a string of unforgettable performances, growing international recognition and a new body of work, the band sets out across Europe and North America, carrying their signature blend of protest soul, twisted folk, deep groove and joyful abandon.

At the heart of Honeyfeet is the indomitable Ríoghnach Connolly, winner of the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Award for Best Folk Singer and BBC Radio 2’s Folk Singer of the Year. Her voice, equal parts fierce, tender and fearless, connects ancestral song traditions with contemporary storytelling.

Special guest is Paddy Steer. ‘It’s a sometime cartoon-like music dense with events, new textures and the colours of children’s paintings, sounds like a Swiss cuckoo clock made of egg boxes and horsehair, glued together by an African Moog player in a Vietnamese iron monger’s shop. Over 10 years I have witnessed Paddy Steer develop his alien avatar in the most difficult of nightclub and festival circumstances. It’s a synthesiser show that is so far away from kling klang clinicalism and the haughty air of the modular meet. On the surface it is a pound shop space program.'

This is a 14+ event. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.

Ríoghnach Connolly & Honeyfeet + Paddy Steer

Welcome to the Upside Down

Paddy Steer

Ríoghnach Connolly

Manchester Academy 3

On The Wing is the debut album from Yoshika Colwell, released in July by Blue Flowers (Rosie Lowe, Gotts Street Park, Puma Blue). A captivating and sophisticated collection of eleven songs that traverse the outer regions of folk, it is a record of acceptance and self-discovery, rooted in solitude and personal healing, from one of the UK’s most exciting new singer-songwriters.

Previous singles Last Night and Fighting On The Wing both feature on the album, as well as There’s Got To Be A Loser Babe, which features a perfect visual accompaniment from Tilly Wace, who has collaborated with Yoshika on all the album’s creative.

Life, for us all, comes in seasons: the bitter frosts and balmy awakenings that herald the literal passing of time, but also the periods of retreat and re-emergence that bookmark our own individual paths along this mortal coil. For Yoshika, the last decade has found her existing at both ends of the spectrum. Following a period of complete dislocation fuelled by a move to a new town, lockdown and a traumatic break-up all striking in quick succession, it would take a stretch of restorative isolation to bring her back to full creative and personal health. Now, however, all of that sadness and pain, acceptance and slow-dawning hope has been channeled into On The Wing.

Produced by Oli Bayston (Barry Can’t Swim, Rachel Chinouriri), the album was recorded at Studio Orbb.

Special guest is Scottish folk musician Caitlin Gilligan.

Yoshika Colwell + Caitlin Gilligan

Yoshika Colwell

Six critically acclaimed albums in, Jesca Hoop’s most recent offering Order of Romance is her most intricate and finely balanced album to date, one that draws on classic song writing, recalling anything from Gershwin to Paul Simon, but creating something that is unmistakably, indelibly Jesca Hoop.

Order of Romance is fruitful marriage of song craft and arrangement, brimming with a cinematic charm, vocal prowess and lyrical wit that signify a new chapter full of new life for an artist who knows her mind, her heart and voice well enough to trust them in uncharted territory. It is a complete work and effervescent culmination of Hoop’s life long practice of singing and the mastery of song.

Tour support is hot springs. Born out of a restless urge to disrupt the humdrum of everyday life — hot springs is a sonic antidote to the mundane. With a mischievous spirit and a love for the unexpected, Manchester-based band leader Rachel Rimmer crafts songs that twist and turn like a fever dream, blending groovy rhythms, off-kilter riffs, and lush, dreamy vocals into something equal parts playful and poignant. With alternative folk intimacy and art-rock spirit – hot springs invites listeners into a world where melodies captivate and structures misbehave. It’s music that dances between chaos and charm, with an instinct for surprising left turns.

Jesca Hoop + hot springs

Jesca Hoop

Hallé at St Michaels

Jim Moray is an English folk musician, singer, and producer known for his innovative approach to traditional folk music. First gaining notice in the early 2000s for his startling reimagining of traditional songs, blending acoustic instrumentation with electronic production, he has established himself as one of the key figures in the English Folk Revival of the last 25 years.

A true polymath, he is known for playing nearly all the instruments on his recordings as well as producing, arranging and mixing. He is also in demand as a producer for both a new generation of forward-looking folk musicians and the older generation of musicians who came before him. Never satisfied with staying still, the artist is still moving after shaking the folk world to its foundations twenty years ago. And in a genre where musicians reach their peak the older they get, there’s a sense that he has only just begun.

Tour support comes from Maz O’Connor. Described by the Observer as ‘a highly individual singer-songwriter’, Maz O’Connor is a truly unique artist. From Cumbria with Irish roots, Maz is known for her haunting, emotive vocals and her poetic lyricism.

This show takes place at the Strines Nightingale – a lovely country pub, formerly called the Sportsman, which re-opened in autumn 2022. Strines is on the Piccadilly-Sheffield train line, and on the 358 bus route from Stockport to Hayfield. This show will run until 10.30pm at the latest.

Jim Moray + Maz O'Connor

Jim Moray

Maz O'Connor

Macclesfield

The Strines Nightingale

As a babe Jeffrey Martin sought out solitude as often as he could find it. He’s always been that way, and he has never understood the whole phenomenon of smiling in pictures, although he is a very happy guy. One night in middle school he stayed up under the covers with a flashlight and a DiscMan, listening to Reba McEntire’s That’s the Night that the Lights Went Out in Georgia on repeat until the DiscMan ran out of batteries. That night he became a songwriter, although he didn’t actually write a song until years later. After high school he spent a few years distracting himself from having to gather up the courage to do what he knew he had to do.

Eventually he found his way to a writing degree, and then a teaching degree. He wrote most days like his life depended on it, all sorts of things, not just songs, but songs too. He fell in love with teaching high school English, which was fantastic because he never thought he’d actually come to truly love it. His students were fierce and unstoppable forces of noise and curiosity, and for all that they took from him in sleep and sense, they gave him a hundred times back in sparks and humility.

All the while he was also playing truckloads of music. There was one weekend where he flew to LA while grading essays on the plane, played two shows, and then flew back home, still grading essays, and woke up to teach at 5am on Monday morning. It was around this time he started wondering if such a life was sustainable.

Jeffrey Martin

Sad Blue Eyes

Jeffrey Martin - Sad Blue Eyes

YES Basement

What does it mean to be from the South today? To try to reconcile the struggles and possibilities of Southern experience through songs, through words? Is it worth it? Are there secrets still worth revealing?

Fust – the lyrical powerhouse Southern rock band from Durham, North Carolina – have made these questions the heart of their work and, more than ever before, it is the drama at play on their new record Big Ugly. Fust joins a long tradition of artists that have tried to present life in the dirty South, from the lived-in short stories of Breece and Ann Pancake to the traditional record-keeping of John Jacob Niles to the southern rock historicism of Drive-By Truckers. For these artists and for Fust, making sense of the South is a necessity because history is what hurts and in the words of Hemingway, our call is to “write hard and clear, about what hurts.”

Big Ugly is an 11-song testament to doing just that, with band leader Aaron Dowdy pushing his obsessions with country-storytelling to more mystifying places, hellbent on proving the elegance of grittiness in Southern life. The seeds for Big Ugly began when Dowdy - a distant relative of Maybelle Carter and the infamous Hatfields who grew up in southwest Virginia at the foothills of coal country - started taking trips with his grandmother to southern West Virginia over the past few years. Walking around the places she grew up, he was moved by how those melodramas of holler life from over 50 years ago were afire in her still.

Fust

After four years of quietly crafting their sound, Manchester’s Juice Pops are ready to make some noise. With their debut album Living Books, the quartet step confidently into their hometown spotlight, launching the record with a special gig at YES Basement.

Since forming in 2018 and releasing their self-titled EP in 2021, Juice Pops have evolved from purveyors of bright, sunshine-pop to something altogether more richly textured. Their brand of upbeat indie rock now sprawls across genres – psychedelia, post-hardcore, garage rock, surf, and power pop all collide in an exuberant mix that feels both nostalgic and modern.

Living Books channels a restless energy into a set of songs that swing between mania and melancholy, packed with lyrical flights of imagination – cathedrals, time machines, stargazing, and haunted heroines straight from the pages of Tolstoy. Musically, it’s a fever dream of intertwining twin guitars, harmonies and vintage organ swells, balancing moments of lush introspection against sharp, tonally shifting bursts of chaos. BBC Introducing Manchester have already hailed lead single Heavyweight Champion as “that sweet intersection of noise and bliss that makes magic.”

Support comes from Precious Metals. Precious Metals formed in Sheffield in 2018. Their beachcombing post-punk riffs, psychedelic keys and earworming alternative pop harmonies have the band surfing somewhere on the Pacific Ocean between 90s Olympia and Connan Mockasin’s tripped-out New Zealand.

Juice Pops album launch

Precious Metals

Juice Pops

Romeo Stodart and Ren Harvieu are unveiling an entirely new and exciting live show together.

The RnR Show will be taking their songs and stories into some of the UK’s most beautiful and intimate rooms. The pair promise a show as riveting as it is ramshackle, as romantic as it is rambunctious.

Expect a rich tapestry of new material woven with reimagined favourites from their own catalogues — and a few magical surprises along the way.

With their forthcoming debut album together arriving in the new year, this is a rare chance to experience two kindred spirits at the very start of a bold and beautiful new musical journey, sharing their craft with honesty, humour, and heart.

Truly a show not to be missed.

Ren Harvieu is a singular voice in British music — rich, emotive, and timeless.

The Salford-born singer-songwriter first arrived with Through The Night, her Top 5 debut, which won her an eclectic array of fans from the likes of Nas, Tom Jones and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – all inviting her to sing with them.

Looking ahead, 2026 promises to be a landmark year. Ren will release not one but two new albums: her eagerly awaited third solo record, and an exciting debut collaborative album with Romeo Stodart. It’s a thrilling year for her music and a fresh chapter in her artistic journey.

Romeo Stodart is the lead singer/songwriter in the much loved London-based rock ‘n’ roll harmony group The Magic Numbers.

Romeo Stodart + Ren Harvieu

Yes Please

Romeo Stodart

The Dream Syndicate will perform their visceral 1984 album Medicine Show on tour in the US and Europe beginning in November 2025 and carrying through March of 2026. The tour will sync with a reissue of Medicine Show (now expanded into a 4-CD set of 42 songs, 29 unreleased performances (live and studio) from 1983-84) and a vinyl LP on the band’s own Down There label, distributed by Fire Records.

It will be the first time the band has played Medicine Show in its entirety and comes fresh on the heels of a similar and successful tour for The Days of Wine and Roses in 2022.

The band will open each evening with a set of new material, drawn from the four reunion albums they have made since 2017, take a short break and then switch over to Medicine Show – heralded as one of the 40 best rock albums ever by the Guardian. It has been out of print in every format for decades.

The Dream Syndicate burst onto the LA scene at the beginning of 1982 as the leaders of the Paisley Underground movement – becoming one of the leading lights of the American indie scene that was brewing after the birth of punk and new wave. Four albums and countless tours followed before The Dream Syndicate disbanded in 1988, then reuniting in 2012. The core band of Steve Wynn, Dennis Duck and Mark Walton from the first incarnation was joined by Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3 guitarist Jason Victor and eventually Green on Red keyboardist Chris Cacavas, the lineup that endures to this day.

This is a 10+ show. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.

The Dream Syndicate present Medicine Show in its entirety

How Did I Find Myself Here

The Dream Syndicate

Band on the Wall

Dominie Hooper is a London-based singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist crafting spellbinding music rooted in folklore, ritual, and emotional transformation. Her songs simmer with raw intensity and lyrical barbs, blending growling cello, textured guitar, and collective vocals into something dark, unsettling, and beautiful.

Her debut single for Lost Map Records, Land, produced by Ben Hillier (Depeche Mode, Nadine Shah), is a powerful meditation on healing and self-reclamation. Written while reflecting on her upbringing in the wilds of Dartmoor, the track conjures a landscape of isolation, memory, and grounded magic.

‘It’s about choosing the path of healing, again and again,’ Dominie explains. ‘Magic, folklore and myth offer archetypes through which we can flip our own script.’

Dominie’s sound draws comparisons to the brooding drama of PJ Harvey and John Parish, the raw emotional weight of Magnolia Electric Co., and the timeless power of Richard & Linda Thompson. Her commanding voice and blistering live band have already earned her support slots with This Is The Kit, multiple UK headline tours, and appearances at festivals including Shambala, Deer Shed, and Moseley Folk.

Her upcoming debut album, In This Body Lives, due for release on Hallowe’en 2025, promises to deepen the spell. As Under the Radar Magazine put it: ‘The breadth of her talent is immediately apparent.’

‘Endlessly engaging and thrilling’ – Guy Garvey, BBC 6 Music

‘Absolutely beautiful’ – Shaun Keaveny

Dominie Hooper

Versatile and prolific Leeds-based pianist and composer Simeon Walker has quickly emerged as a leading light in the burgeoning modern classical scene. Alongside a busy performance and touring schedule across the UK and Europe, in recent years he has supported a variety of high-profile artists including Neil Cowley, Submotion Orchestra, Erland Cooper and LYR (Simon Armitage’s musical project) and performed notable live sets at Latitude, Timber Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe and SXSW London.

His music is regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and ClassicFM, and has received listening figures in excess of 50 million streams across platforms, whilst his piece Reverie notably features on the first official Piano Day compilation (2022) by the LEITER label, alongside modern classical luminaries Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds and Chilly Gonzales.

An in-demand collaborator, Simeon has worked with numerous musicians, composers and performers across a wide range of genres and musical styles. With a keen interest in interdisciplinary work, he has received commissions to collaborate on projects involving fellow creatives such as artist Mary Griffiths, Portuguese choreographer Sara Afonso, writer Emma White, filmmakers Will Killen and Ben Cohen, plus organisations including BBC Radio 4 and University of Leeds.

Simeon Walker

Patterns, Erase - Simeon Walker Rework

The Besnard Lakes return with their seventh album The Besnard Lakes Are the Ghost Nation. In doing so confirming their status as one of the most peerlessly consistent bands over the 20 years plus of their existence – with a purity of vision and level of quality that is hard to rival in modern music.

“I feel like it’s a very formidable title, symbolic of the times,” says co-singer Jace Lasek. “It’s talking about the death of nations, the threat of Canada being the 51st state. There is the desire to be left alone, to let community be community, all of those things that feel like they might be under siege; that’s what the ghost nation is.”

The band confirms this was partly in response to their last album, 2021’s The Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings. “The last record was so heavy,” reflects Jace. “There was so much weight and heavy themes, like my dad dying. It was just death everywhere on that record. This album doesn’t really seem to be that. To me, it seems very playful.”

They gathered in a gorgeous barn at Lost River Studios, deep in the woods of the Laurentians, to record the album. Spending 5 days compiling, experimenting and experiencing the creative solitude in the woods with some of the band’s family members there. The result is a playful yet thoughtful and heartfelt collection of psychedelic sounds and experiences.

Support from The Thorn - a musical group who play psych-tinged heavy folk-rock with nods to jazz and soul.

The Besnard Lakes + The Thorn

The Besnard Lakes - The Plain Moon

The Thorn

The Besnard Lakes

YES The Pink Room

Formed in 1995, The Dears released their first, ultra lo-fi album, End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story, in 2000. The orchestral, dark pop sound and dramatic live shows cemented The Dears at the foundation of the then-emerging Canadian indie-rock renaissance. Their live show was described as ‘the sonic equivalent of seeing the face of god’.

In 2001 and 2002, they released two separate concept EPs, Orchestral Pop Noir Romantique and Protest, respectively. In 2003 they released their second full-length album No Cities Left in Canada, and a string of highly anticipated shows at SxSW ‘04 prompted the international release of No Cities Left with Bella Union. Their third album, Gang of Losers, came in 2006, was well received by the press, and was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize. In 2008, the band released Missiles, followed by Degeneration Street (2011), Times Infinity Volume One (2015), Times Infinity Volume Two (2017), and Lovers Rock (2020).

In 2024 The Dears partnered with Outside Music/Next Door Records and in the spring of 2025 completed their ninth studio album, with release details forthcoming!

The Dears have toured the world over, including performances on Letterman (twofold), Jimmy Kimmel, Jonathan Ross and at Glastonbury, T in the Park, Wireless, Montreal Jazz Fest, Siren Festival, Coachella, Austin City Limits, V Fest, Reading and Leeds, Les Inrocks (France), Montreux Jazz Fest, Istanbul Jazz Fest, Pop Montreal, CMW, NXNE and countless appearances at SXSW.

The Dears

Eydís Evensen is one of Iceland’s most remarkable musical exports — a composer and pianist whose deeply emotive soundscapes have quietly captivated audiences around the world. Classically trained, but led by instinct and emotion, Evensen creates music that transcends genre: flowing between modern classical, ambient minimalism, cinematic composition, and quiet introspection. Her work is as rooted in feeling as it is in technique — music that doesn’t just speak, but listens.

Raised in the windswept northern town of Blönduós, where the raw Icelandic landscape shapes every aspect of life, Evensen began composing at the age of seven, inspired by a snowstorm battering the windows of her childhood home. That first composition set the tone for everything to come: beauty wrapped in fragility, movement born from stillness, and a deep emotional connection to the natural world.

Her debut album Bylur (2021), released on Sony Masterworks imprint XXIM Records and named after the Icelandic word for “snowstorm,” is an intimate and moving collection of piano-led pieces and string arrangements that trace her emotional journey from childhood through adulthood. It’s a record shaped by solitude, displacement, and memory — a modern classical diary etched in sound. With her second album on XXIM Records, The Light (2023), Evensen expanded her sonic palette, introducing choral arrangements, subtle electronics, and — for the first time — her own voice.

This is a 14+ event. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult

Eydis Evensen

Eydís Evensen

Emerging from the quiet village of Wymeswold, nestled on the border between Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, The Wave Pictures formed in the late 1990s as a group of school friends with second-hand instruments, a love of American indie rock, and an instinctive DIY ethic. Over three decades the Wave Pictures have grown into one of the UK’s most singular and enduring cult bands.

The group honed their sound through covers of Velvet Underground, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Pavement, inspired by long nights listening to John Peel and taping his shows to cassette. It was during these formative years that Tattersall began to write songs of his own — idiosyncratic, literate, and melodically rich — setting the band on a path toward an eclectic and prolific career.

The early days were marked by experimentation and home recording, leading to a series of out-of-print CDRs that captured the raw energy and charm of their lo-fi beginnings. Albums such as Just Watch Your Friends Don’t Get You and More St. Less T.V. chart the journey from curious students to committed artists. Together, they developed a sound that defied easy categorisation — part garage rock, part indie pop, part classic rock and roll — and a reputation for witty, unpredictable lyrics and masterful musicianship.

Special guest is Turner Cody - a songwriter in the American tradition and a poet laureate of the millennial generation. He came up in NYC’s anti-folk scene. He currently lives in St. Louis MO.

The Wave Pictures + Turner Cody

I Love You Like A Madman

Turner Cody

The Wave Pictures

Jens Lekman is an accidental wedding singer. But he’s also a wedding singer for a reason. Ever since his 2004 song If You Ever Need a Stranger (To Sing at Your Wedding) he has had a side gig fielding requests from strangers to sing at their weddings. For over twenty years, he’s had a particular vantage point from which to see the role love songs can play in our lives.

In 2020, he and novelist David Levithan co-conceived a novel-with-music, Songs from Other People’s Weddings. Originally this album was meant to contain the songs from the weddings in the book, but as the novel came together, Lekman began to imagine what happened between the book’s chapters.

The book and the album eventually became intertwined but also found their own paths. The book remained the structure of the story, but the album sometimes snuck behind the scenes. Stories from the songs made their way into the book and vice versa. The result is an exploration of what we sing about when we sing about love — euphoria, doubt, dislocation, tenderness, conflict, playfulness, gratitude, ingratitude, longing, belonging, questioning, answering.

It’s very much about a relationship and how it’s reflected through the relationships and weddings of others, but most of all it’s a lovesong to lovesongs.

This is a 14+ event

Jens Lekman

Leeds

Howard Assembly Room

Beans on Toast hits the road with his full band and new album Kill Them with Kindness. Expect songs, stories, chaos and community in equal measure.

The new record is up there with his finest work to date, bouncing between songs about the shitshow of planet earth and the fall of the establishment, to family life, planting trees, and the absurdities of modern living. The record was captured with his new full band, who’ll bring it to life on stage alongside plenty of Beans on Toast classics.

Every show is unique but always full of optimism, honesty and singalongs. His belief in positive change through kindness and his authentic folk style have made him a cult hero, and his passion is infectious. Step right up for a night of music, mischief and magic with Beans on Toast.

“A master of his art” – Full Pelt

“Genuinely life-affirming” – Louder Than War

“A proper folk singer” – Frank Turner

This is a 10+ event. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult

Beans on Toast

Beans On Toast - The Great American Novel

Beans On Toast

When Nikolaj Svaneborg and Jonas Kardyb first met in Aalborg in Northern Denmark in 2013, they discussed forming a duo together, but they only brought the idea to fruition as Svaneborg Kardyb six years later, further south in the university city of Aarhus. In that first week where they reconnected and started playing together, they seemed to have a telepathic understanding they’d not enjoyed in other groups they’d been in.

“We didn’t have to say anything,” marvels Jonas, “we could just play, and even though we then sometimes stumbled through, it was still music. That’s where the energy in the project came from: it was such a short hop from just playing, to writing and composing. We like to call it that we compose in the moment. It’s not about playing freely, it’s more about being very attentive to what melody is in there, trying to play very simply, and catch that one idea.”

“Because we are only two in the band,” Nikolaj further reasons, “that means there’s only one other person to listen to, and to change direction according to, so we just pay attention to one another, and music seems to come out of nowhere.”

Svaneborg Kardyb

Heavenly are an indie pop band who released four critically acclaimed albums between 1991-1996, becoming key figures in the independent music scenes of both the UK and US through their associations with seminal labels Sarah Records and K Records. Highly influential on what has become known as ‘twee pop’, they inspired generations of musicians with their perfect blend of punk energy and pop sensibility.

Originally forming in Oxford in 1989 from the ashes of legendary punk pop combo Talulah Gosh, Heavenly features Amelia Fletcher (vocals/guitar), Peter Momtchiloff (guitar), Robert Pursey (bass), Cathy Rogers (keyboards/vocals) and Ian Button (drums).

Members of the indiepop scene in the UK and the burgeoning Riot Grrrl scene in the US, Heavenly created a unique blend of infectious melody and sharp-edged lyrics.

Newly rejuvenated, the band started writing songs again. A new 7” single, Portland Town, was released in July 2025 and their fifth album comes out in February 2026.

For their spring 2026 dates, the band will play songs from their past career alongside tracks from the new album. This combination is important to the group. ‘If you’re just doing your old songs and nothing else, you’re almost like one of those cover bands – but of yourself. That would have felt pretty weird pretty quickly,’ says Amelia Fletcher.

Special guests are Tulpa.

Heavenly + Tulpa

Tulpa

Heavenly

Notes fall like raindrops, quickening pace as the clouds gather. The piano melody splish-sploshes into the electronic soundscape; the trees become denser, the journey more profound. Belle Chen‘s album Ravel In The Forest, released on the Platoon label, leads the listener through ancient woodland, quiet clearings and tropical canopies. We’re accompanied by birds, a chameleon, a dragonfly – the wonder of the natural world is imbued into this imaginary space.

Receiving a standing ovation at her EFG London Jazz Festival debut in 2024, Belle is praised as an artist who is ‘original and provocative… feels like the sense of discovery’ by Brian Eno. The Australian Music Prize-nominated artist’s latest album charted at No 7 on UK Official Chart (Specialist Classical) and No 15 on Australia’s ARIA Chart (Classical).

In her live shows, Belle takes a quirky, yet tender approach to musical storytelling. With the unmistakable influences of Maurice Ravel, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Joe Hisaishi’s melodic sweetness shining through, Belle blends sonic synth explorations, classical virtuosity, and free flowing improvisations that feel equally at home on jazz or experimental stages.

This is a solo performance that is not to be missed, with Belle performing tunes from her Ravel In The Forest album and new material.

This show takes place at Low Four – a recording studio situated on Deansgate Mews in the Great Northern warehouse. This intimate venue features a fully stocked Cloudwater bar.

Belle Chen

In the music of Charlie Parr, there is a sincere conviction and earnest drive to create. The Minnesota-born guitarist, songwriter, and interpreter of traditional music has released 19 albums over two decades and has been known to perform up to 275 shows a year. Parr is a folk troubadour in the truest sense: taking to the road between shows, writing and rewriting songs as he plays, fueled by a belief that music is eternal and cannot be claimed or adequately explained. The bluesman poet pulls closely from the sights and sounds around him, his lyrical craftsmanship built by his influences. The sounds from his working-class upbringing—including Folkways legends such as Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie—imbue Parr’s music with stylistic echoes of blues and folk icons of decades past. Parr sees himself merely as a continuer of a folk tradition: “I feel like I stand on a lot of big shoulders,” he said in an interview. “I hope that I’ve brought a little bit of myself to the music.”

With a discography simultaneously transcendental in nature and grounded in roots music, Charlie Parr is the humble master of the 21st century folk tradition. Parr started recording in Duluth in 2002, where he lives today. Life in the port town on Lake Superior has a way of bleeding into his work the same way his childhood in Austin, Minnesota does. Parr self-released his debut album, Criminals and Sinners, and did the same for his sophomore album 1922 (2002).

Charlie Parr

Rocky Raccoon

The Mac Gloinn brothers – Brian and Diarmuid – first performed in the streets together as buskers and have since evolved into a robust collective – a sonically unique ensemble featuring layered acoustic and electric guitars, trumpet, upright bass, Moog synthesizer, harmonium, bouzouki, fiddle, and the blood harmony of the siblings’ distinctive, multi-hued voices.

Having been described as "being at the fore of a new wave of Irish folk", they have won Best Track, Best Album and Best Folk Group at RTE Radio 1 Folk Awards.

Their forthcoming and much anticipated new studio album, All Tied Together, was recorded mostly live in an old Galway house, with acclaimed producer Phil Weinrobe (Big Thief, Adrienne Lenker) at the helm and is released in January 2026 via Rough Trade / River Lea.

This is an all ages event. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult (18+) at all times

Ye Vagabonds

The Sheepdogs are Canada’s leaders in rock ’n’ roll entertainment. Four-time JUNO Award winners from Saskatoon, with multiple Gold and Platinum records to their name, they blend killer harmonies, dual-guitar wizardry, and a stage presence that turns audiences into true believers.

The Sheepdogs deliver the real goods: rock music that’s loud, loose, and full of soul. They’ve taken their unmistakable sound from bars and roadhouses to festival fields and arenas around the world, earning a well-deserved reputation as one of the most electrifying live bands today.

With 13 releases — including the recent companion EPs Paradise Alone and Hell Together — the band continues to prove that the spirit of classic rock will never die. Now, thanks to their own label, Right On Records, they are masters of their own destiny. Their new single, Nobody But You, is the first taste of new music to come and proof that The Sheepdogs are charging full steam ahead into 2026 and beyond.

Hey! Manchester

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