Rock Gigs in Bristol

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Bristol's Rock Scene

With so many artists jumping ship in favour of more fashionable genre name, it's always amazing to see how much falls under the 'rock' umbrella. Classic rock venues in Bristol include The O2 Academy and The Fleece.

Have Idles put Bristol rock music back on the map?

Idles have put Bristol rock music back on everyone’s mind, but they’re just one of the talented Bristol rock bands who have the nation’s attention. While more retro rock gigs like Let’s Rock Bristol festival and rock and metal cover bands at the Fleece and Beerkeller (RIP), make Bristol’s rock scene look 80s focused, the List of current bands in Bristol is long. Bands like Heavy Lungs, Stolen Body record their own brand of psychedelic rock (including the popular yearl Bristol Psych Fest). For those who love to rock: Bristol’s live music scene salutes you.

Buy tickets for rock events in Bristol

Our recent rock recommendations

Cellar Door’s latest extra spooky audiovisual showcase is an absolute glut of London/Brighton/Bristol talent, with a 5 band bill and 28 members between them (someone buy the sound engineer a beer) - headed up by fidgety weirdo art rock/power pop from Green Man Rising faves The Orchestra (For Now). FFO: Black Country New Road, black midi, Jackie O Motherfucker. HALLOWEEN SPECIAL

Trance-inducing DIY Yemeni troubadour music, skittering and grooving along on junkyard instruments fashioned by carpenter and bandleader Eyal El Wahab. El Khat twists traditional melodies into trash-heaps of psychedelic, funky wonderment FFO: Gaye Su Akyol, Habibi Funk, Altin Gün, Acid Arab, The Scorpios. El Khat + Bad Bangs + Broadsheets

Sunglasses After Dark rip through 10 hours of trashbeat psychosis and diseased garage punk with 7 killer live acts, 8 DJs + market stalls selling animal print-appropriate attire. Our highlights? Palooka 5’s organ octane surf rock (all the way from sunny Taunton) and the Crystal Teardrops’ drop-out psych-folk burners. No-brainer FFO: the Cramps, the B-52's, Dead Moon, Nuggets, acid. Celebrating all things fuzzy w/ 7 bands, 8+ DJs, local artists, vintage clothing, vinyl + high end food stall!

Midweek essential! Veterans of the Swedish underground The Janitors lurch mercilessly between nightmare psychedelia and hypnotic garage-sludge, guaranteed to send Crofters into a blissed-out stoner-drone stupor. Heavy-hitting cosmic murk FFO: Sabbath, BJM, The Black Angels, The Warlocks, Dead Meadow. A Grey Muzzle Promotions event

What our editors say

“On their 2022 release, the German/Austrian music producer (Mother's Cake, Noah Fürbringer,...) and live musician Raphaël Neikes showcases his ability to seamlessly blend psychedelic rock, alternative rock, psych pop, grunge, and indie rock with his band.”
From: SPIRAL DRIVE

“The Nightingales release their first studio album since 2022’s much-praised ‘The Last Laugh’. Celebrated in the excellent Stewart Lee-narrated film King Rocker of 2020, where the curtain was raised on the magic of the “long serving punk/alternative rock volunteer” (The Quietus) Robert Lloyd, The Nightingales are as pertinent as ever as they release a poignant tirade on modern times heralded, quite rightly, as ‘The Awful Truth’.”
From: The Nightingales

“Formed in Oklahoma City in 1983, The Flaming Lips have since become one of the most iconic, influential, unpredictable, and vital forces in American alternative rock music. ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots‘ gave the band their first RIAA certified Gold Record. As the eagerly awaited follow-up to 1999’s masterwork, ‘The Soft Bulletin‘, Yoshimi proved that singer/guitarist Wayne Coyne, and multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd had yet another masterpiece in them.”
From: The Flaming Lips

“Good Sad Happy Bad is a band composed of CJ Calderwood, Marc Pell, Mica Levi, and Raisa Khan. Their whimsical kraut punk and art rock experiments, brimming with mantras and cycles and nervous lullabies, bring the listener into wobbly landscapes and toward spiralling epiphanies.”
From: Good Sad Happy Bad + Maria Somerville

“Erotic Secrets of Pompeii play wild, weird apocalyptic lounge music - a twisted amalgamation of angular art rock and transgressive post-punk, transmitted directly from the heart of the forbidden zone.”
From: Erotic Secrets Of Pompeii