First Gig: Live & Louder
Dear reader, if you made it through the first post, you’ll know this is a complete waste of your precious time, or maybe your time isn’t precious at all. Who knows, and ultimately, who actually cares.
The TL;DR is this: we messed around and recorded an EP, which was released in December 2024. Then, after some hard work from Jabba (Toby), we got involved in the wonderful community of online independent artists and radio stations.
The mighty Scotland Rocks Radio had been spinning some of our tunes, and around spring 2025 Rob from the station reached out to see if we’d be interested in joining the lineup for their monthly Live & Louder gig at the legendary Banshee Labyrinth in Edinburgh. As an Edinburgh-based rock band, we were thrilled at the opportunity to play our first ever SOMB gig.
Naturally, nothing ever goes to plan in the world of SOMB, and it just so happened that our resident prima donna and lead guitar player (Tom) had injured his back while massaging his ridiculous ego, meaning we wouldn’t be gigging anytime soon. Fortunately, we managed to arrange with Rob to take part in their final show of the year in December 2025.
So, with some time to fill, we spent it hurling insults at each other on the band group chat and polluting cyberspace with every thought that popped into Toby’s brain.
Once we were done with that, we headed back into the barn with Al to start work on the next set of tracks. Be careful what you wish for — they’ll be out in the world soon, and you won’t be able to unhear them.
One thing you may not know about SOMB is that the Kirkwood brothers and their family host a DIY music festival, Kirkwoodstock, at their parents’ house in the Highlands of Scotland every summer — and we’re the house band. So the whole premise of this post being about our first gig is technically a lie. Don’t worry though, it’s just a drop in the ocean of complete fabrications and fantasies you’ve read up until this point.
Although we had to wait until December for our first “public” gig, we were able to get some practice in by playing for a hostile but well-dressed crowd at Kirkwoodstock.
With KStock done and dusted, we got down to the business of practising for the December gig and, in a very out of character turn of events, actually took it seriously. This was likely driven by our crippling insecurity that the quality of our live performance wouldn’t match the quality of our tracks (a low bar), or perhaps by the fact that we’d be opening the night alongside two other genuinely excellent bands.
Gig day crept up on us in the same unsettling fashion Arthur approaches his drum kit, and before we knew it we were on stage, playing a real show for a real audience — complete with some familiar and unfriendly faces in the crowd.
The whole experience was genuinely awesome. Everyone we met from Scotland Rocks Radio was super friendly and supportive, and the work they do to champion independent rock and metal music in Scotland is the vital lifeblood artists like us need. We honestly can’t thank them enough.
On top of that, once we were done performing, we got to enjoy top class sets from Carbon Replica and Holyrude Vault. Special shout out to Andy from Carbon Replica for being an unbelievable singer and an all-round legend.
Naturally, the crowd went mild for our performance, and as Scotsmen our default setting is to never admit to ourselves that we achieved something we are proud of, but despite the inevitable mistakes and things we can improve for next time, dipping our toes into the world of gigging was a big step, we can’t wait for the next one.
No further comment,
SOMB
