Eight Great Affordable Live Bands
When we launched Sherwood at the start of this year, the mission was simple: find the best, most affordable live bands in Britain.
Somewhere along the way, the music press stopped standing shoulder to shoulder with the artists and scenes that deserve the spotlight, and started chasing clout, click-bait, and nostalgia, reporting the gossip about which celebrity rock star is beefing with who, and producing endless anniversary features on bands who peaked 20 years ago.
Grassroots venues are closing week after week, so where are the columns about bands slogging it out in 150-cap rooms every weekend? If the music press doesn’t exist to keep the doors of these venues open, what are they even for?
We launched Sherwood in January not to flatter arenas, chase algorithms, or rewrite label press releases we get sent. Instead, we choose to document the DIY punk nights, the sludge weekenders, and the indie trio who spent all their money on petrol to play to twenty enraptured people.
This is a selection of eight bands who are out there working hard, loading their own gear, selling their own merch, giving it their all, and are really, really worth your time right now:
Split Dogs
There’s an awful lot to love about Split Dogs. Classic rock-and-roll with a big punk edge, delivered with buckets of feral energy, showmanship and snarl. Frontwoman Harry Atkins is a rabid, magnetic presence, with the rest of the band keeping it loud, sweaty, and extremely fun.
Hot Wife
A Hot Wife live show is hilarious, as two extremely playful and silly frontwomen are backed by a seriously tight grunge band with big fuzzy guitar tones and excellent drumming. They’ve opened for wildly different bands, from pop-punk to shoegaze, and always work as an incredibly engaging warm-up act.
Noisepicker
Noisepicker is clearly a labour of love for Orange Goblin’s Harry Armstrong and drummer Kieran Murphy, playing tiny shows, often for free, purely for the joy of making a glorious racket. A massive sounding grungy, blues-soaked, sludgy two-piece that play terrific, unhinged rock-and-roll very, very loud in small spaces.
False Reality
False Reality are a hardcore band rooted firmly in the scene. Fronted by Rachel Rigby, who spent nearly a decade as a promoter before forming the band, the connection between False Reality and their crowd is electric, with huge breakdowns and lyrics that cut to the bone tackling betrayal and inner turmoil with clarity and bite.
Heriot
Heriot are an extremely compelling extreme metal band who sound profoundly evil, and seeing them live feels like being locked in a furnace. Debbie Gough is a phenomenal frontwoman, and the whole band hits like a bulldozer. In a genre that can fall into formula, Heriot make music that feels genuinely unsettling and totally consuming.
Soot Sprite
Soot Sprite’s debut album Wield Your Hope Like A Weapon is a perfect encapsulation of what it’s like to live through this endless, horrifying news cycle, feeling like a hug amidst the chaos. As a live act, they blend soft, intimate verses with walls of noise that hit like a jet engine, and it’s utterly captivating.
Employed To Serve
The heroes of the UK underground right now, Employed To Serve are revered within the metal scene for their total commitment to the community. Their latest album Fallen Star is a massive, career-defining record, and they’re everything you want in a live metal band: tight, ferocious, and totally focussed on pure headbanging joy.
Shooting Daggers
Shooting Daggers are pure chemistry, a trio who’ve found their perfect match in each other. On the surface, they’re playing skate punk with a big grunge streak, but the emotional range of their sets is remarkable with moments of ecstatic joy, righteous rage, and tender balladry, all delivered by a band who are absolutely locked in together.
