Gigs

Forthcoming Gigs:
17th September 2021, Bloody Scotland, Stirling
Absolutely thrilled to be playing on the Friday night at this year’s Bloody Scotland festival in Stirling. We’re at the Albert Halls, where we’ve played a couple of times before, and we absolutely cannot wait. Details here. See you down the front!

19th September 2021, Homeless World Cup Four Nations, Edinburgh
We are totally thrilled to be playing at the Homeless World Cup Foundation’s first ever Four Nations Challenge Cup. It’s taking place on The Mound in the centre of Edinburgh over the weekend of 18th/19th September. We’re playing a short challenge match around lunchtime Sunday, then playing a show at 4pm. Come along and laugh/heckle as you see fit! Details here.

Previous Gigs:
29th February 2020, Paisley Book Festival
The band did a book event in the afternoon, talking nonsense as per, then played a storming gig as the festival closer at night. This was the first time we’d all played together in six months and it was absolutely belting. Managed one brand new tune, an Elton John classic.

18th October 2019, Festival of the Future, Bonar Hall, Dundee
Torrential rain didn’t deter Dundee audiences from a very funny book event, then a cracking show later in the evening. Phill Jupitus joined us on stage to sing ‘Down in the Tube Station at Midnight’, which went down a treat.

10th October 2019, Cheltenham Literary Festival, Town Hall, Cheltenham
This was our second gig without Val, who was in New Zealand for a bit. Lovely book event first, then the gig, then we hotfooted it across to the Sky Arts studio to play live on their festival show. Noice!

23rd August 2019, Edinburgh International Book Festival, 9pm
This was our third time at Edinburgh Book Festival, our spiritual home! It was absolutely rammed, craaaaazy busy, a total sweatbox, nuts from start to finish, completely insane. Thanks, Edinburgh!

19th July 2019 2019, Theakston’s Crime Writing Festival, Harrogate
A late show on the Friday night, it was crazily hot and sweaty, jam packed and jumping from the get-go. A certain Nicola Sturgeon joined us on stage for backing vocals at one point. Amazing!

7th July 2019, Cornbury Festival
Our second music festival appearance in a week, this was a terrific gig at a great family-friendly festival in Oxfordshire. We rocked the Songbird Stage and had a huge crowd by the end. Great stuff!

29th June 2019, Glastonbury Festival
Well, this was a dream come true. We were honoured to play on the Acoustic Stage, and had a great crowd on the Saturday afternoon. A cheeky little 50-minute set was like a greatest hits!

22nd March 2019, Aye Write, Glasgow
Our return to Glasgow was a 400-capacity sell out at the Mitchell Theatre, and our first gig in four months. We blew off the cobwebs though, and kicked out the jams. Onwards!

17th November 2018, Iceland Noir, Reykjavik
Well. Val had to pull out last minute with flu, so the rest of us spent the weekend trying to work out how to do a show without her. We dropped three tunes, and rejigged the rest to try to cover for her. The energy on stage was very different, but we just about pulled it off. And the venue, and Reykjavik, were absolutely beautiful, as was the entire festival and the people. Great weekend!

2nd November 2018, The Oh Yeah, Belfast
This was a special Noirish Night in association with Noireland, Belfast’s excellent crime festival. We did a book event beforehand with the inimitable Steve Cavanagh and talked a lot of entertaining shite. The crowd took a while to get dancing, but they got there in the end. We switched the set around a bit, some of which worked, some didn’t. Live and learn, folks!

20th October 2018, East Riding Festival of Words, The Memorial Hall, Beverley
Cracking visit to Beverley. The sun shone, we all did book events during the day, then rocked da house at night. All the librarian festival volunteers got everyone dancing, which was amazing, and we ended up drinking in some thirteenth century boozer round the corner. I think the toilets hadn’t been cleaned in all that time. Onwards!

21st September 2018, Bloody Scotland, The Albert Halls, Stirling
Our return to Bloody Scotland was absolutely awesome! It’s getting kinda boring saying every gig is better than the last, but that’s how it’s going, believe me. The Albert Halls was jam packed and rocking and dancing right from the start. We played ‘Paperback Writer’ for the first time, and at breakneck pace too. The rest of the set went down brilliantly – God bless the Stirling crowds!

20th September 2018, Oran Mor, Glasgow
This was a cheeky wee secret show to celebrate Chris and Marisa’s birthdays. Won’t say any more except that their son Jack’s cameo on ‘Breaking the Law’ was inspired!

23rd August 2018, Edinburgh International Book Festival
A triumphant return to the (crime) scene of our first ever gig! It was a bigger tent this year (but somehow a smaller stage), but the place was still jam packed, and we brought our A-game, hammering through a slick set to the sweating, dancing massive. The difference in our general competence from last year is astonishing, really. So happy we get to do this!

19th July 2018, Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, The Old Swan, Harrogate
Crazy, hot and sweaty fun from start to finish. We played a shorter hour-long set, and the place was jumping from start to finish. Folk were coming up to us all weekend saying how much they loved it. Crime writers and readers are just the best. Plus we got a very reluctant Laura Lippman up on stage to sing! Nice.

8th June 2018, The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen
A sold-out show at the same venue that Radiohead and Biffy Clyro have previously played? Yes, please. This was seamless and raucous fun, from soundcheck to gig to post-gig shizzles. Got loads of folk dancing early on, everyone hung around and bought books and blethered, awesome. Sadly, Chris couldn’t make it to this gig, so we mercilessly took the piss out of him on stage the whole time. Love you really, Chris!

19th May 2018, ReimagiNation Festival, Rothes Hall, Glenrothes
This was run by the Edinburgh Book Festival as a kind of outreach weekend festival. We all did book events, then played in the massive theatre of the Rothes Halls. It was a massive stage and a really appreciative crowd, and we threw in three new songs that we had only rehearsed for the first time that day: ‘Riot in Cell Block Number 9’, ‘I Predict a Riot’ and ‘Down in the Tube Station at Midnight’.

6th May 2018, Newcastle Noir, The Cluny, Newcastle
Well this was certainly our hottest and sweatiest gig. After an unseasonably roasting hot day on a bank holiday weekend, the pub we played in was crazy busy, so busy in fact that they ran out of beer. But we made the best of it, rocking the place to the rafters, with Lilja Sigurdardottir providing impeccable backing vocals and dancing.

23rd March 2018, Aye Write, The Tramway, Glasgow
Absolutely cracking gig at the Tramway, 370 folk in the theatre and we got them off their bums and into the aisles dancing. We had a ridiculous number of local crime writers on stage for ‘Sympathy For the Devil’ as backing singers. Great stuff!

17th February 2018, Winter Words, Pitlochry
250 of Perthshire’s finest citizens had their asses rocked in the Festival Theatre. The audience was on the more, ahem, mature side, but that didn’t stop them getting on their feet and dancing. Plus we’re getting tighter every show. Thanks, Pitlochry!

11th January 2018, The Islington, London
This was an absolute belter. We did a live recording of the Two Crime Writers podcast with Luca and Steve Cavanagh, then brought the house down with our best show yet. Four new tunes in there, and even a wee mash-up, and we got some Slice Girls up to sing on one song. Thanks to all who came and cheered and danced!

8th September 2017, Bloody Scotland, Stirling
We were on at The Albert Halls on the festival’s opening night, straight after the quiz.  Craig Robertson cunningly overran the quiz, so we had to cut our set short slightly, but that just meant no acoustic, all rawk! Folk were up and dancing from start to finish, and the band just gets tighter with each show. Really excited to play some more shows soon!

23rd August 2017, Edinburgh International Book Festival
This was our first ever show, performing in the Spiegeltent at Charlotte Square. Safe to say the place was absolutely jumping! Cracking night, we played two sets with a few acoustic tunes thrown in, and brought the house down at the end with a combo of ‘Whisky in the Jar’ and ‘500 Miles’. Took about a week for us to peel ourselves off the roof after this one. Onwards!