What's On / Bristol Gigs

Bristol Gigs

— All Bristol's Live Music

Buy tickets for Bristol's best gigs and live music.

Live music gig with great Bristol bands.

Bristol’s best gigs

Every week, the Headfirst editors trawl through all of the live music listings on the website and pick the best gigs for you to go to. Our event selections range from classical music concerts at St George’s Hall to smaller, local musician’s gigs at The Canteen or the Exchange.

Check out this week’s Bristol gig selections over on the Headfirst Facebook page and don’t forget to join our weekly email list for ticket alerts and announcements about interesting bands coming to Bristol including our biggest venues like SWX.

All tickets for this concert were sold through Headfirst Ticket Shop.

Tickets for Bristol gigs

In 2016, Headfirst Bristol launched an online ticket shop for live music events. Inspired by local cooperatives and community interest companies like the Bristol Cable and The Island, Headfirst provides an ethical and respectful place to buy tickets for gigs in Bristol. Our booking fees are low (usually 65p per ticket) and we strive to help support independent live music events as much as large concerts at venues like Bristol Beacon or Marble Factory.

Upcoming gigs in Bristol

Thu 10th September
Drug Church at The Trinity Centre
— The Trinity Centre

Drug Church in Bristol Tickets

Fri 9th April
Festival of Ugly Music at Multiple Venues
Sun 3rd May
Lloyd Banks at Lost Horizon

Live music venues in Bristol

Bristol’s gig venues play an essential and often overlooked role in the city’s music scene. A spectrum of venues provides a ladder for new bands and musical talent to ascend. DIY spaces like Lost Horizon and Strangebrew provide a testbed for the screaming synthesisers and the guitars that will undoubtedly become part of Bristol’s future. Check out Headfirst’s Bristol venues page to discover which kind of performances and concerts you can expect from each gig venue.

First live gig for one of Bristol's best guitarists.

Our editor's top live music recommendation

Sell out warning! Shit-splattered Czech goregrind greats come to shower you in punishing riffs, hella catchy cricket vocals and digestive tract samples. What else do you need to know? Big goofy scat metal fun incoming FFO: Spasm, Ahumado Granujo, Impetigo, Dead Infection, Rompeprop. Gutalax at Exchange.

Sell out warning! Rotting Christ! In Bristol? The first time in a GENERATION!? We’d get a ticket just for that and 11 hours of silence. But hell there’s also mythical Fenland black metal cvltleaders Infernal Sea, hostile deathgrind veterans Benighted, raw and ritualist Scottish atmoblack from Fuath + your only chance to see Kranuum’s slam brutality this year without hopping a plane. Praying to Baphomet for Extreme Fest 2027 already... BRISTOL EXTREME FEST 2026 at The Trinity Centre.

Sell out warning! Just like Glasto, but with blastbeats instead of hippies! The Blastonbree battle jacket utopia is spawning at the arse-end of Stokes Croft for 12 hours of unrelenting grindgore and brutal death metal cloaked in unreadable typefaces. It’s the only place in Blighty you’re gonna see Dutch slam monsters Korpse this year, so make this act of wanton sonic lobotomy truly count kids! BLASTONBREE 2026 at The Full Moon & Attic Bar.

Sell out warning! Olympia, WA’s DIY folk-punk maximalists Pigeon Pit storm Exchange with jittery, anxious romance. Frontwoman Lomes Oleander’s ragged lyrical intimacy rides banjo, fiddle, and acoustic guitar in a frenzy of house-show culture honky-tonk chaos FFO: Bright Eyes, Home Is Where, Radiator Hospital, Violent Femmes. Pigeon Pit at Exchange.

Recommended Gigs

Sat 4th April
After Dark at The Trinity Centre
— The Trinity Centre

After Dark in Bristol Tickets

Fri 18th September
Laura Veirs + Karl Blau at Strange Brew
Tue 26th May
Gitkin at Rough Trade Bristol
— Rough Trade Bristol

Gitkin in Bristol Tickets

Tue 12th May
The OBGMs at Moor Beer Co
Sun 26th April
Burglar at Moor Beer Co
Sun 3rd May
Milkweed at Strange Brew
Fri 27th November
NO CIGAR at Thekla

Gigs in Bristol today

Most of Headfirst’s visitors come to discover new bands and live music in Bristol. We’re proud to be Bristol’s most complete gig listings resource, complete with a full breakdown of gigs in Bristol today and tour dates for the next six months. A sterling selection of open mic nights (particularly along Gloucester Road), provide ample midweek entertainment for would-be talent scouts.

Sell out warning - buy tickets while you can!

Henge stand alone on untapped psychedelic pastures somewhere between Gong and 808 State. So it’s only natural that, after tending to their jazz prog elders, they invite the acid house pioneers for an all-day orbital rave visionquest. Glowsticks, dancing mushrooms, lasers, aliens playing sax, we’re totally here for the marriage of the gonzo electro druids with 808 State’s world-conquering IDM bangers. Space Cassette w/ 808 State & HENGE at Sawmills.

Sell out warning! Norwich’s super-underrated Algae Bloom take a final Bristol bow with a playthrough of their now-classic debut release. The skramz duo are masters of dark transcendental bliss brewed through yelpy bursts of energy, scattershot rhythms and spindly arpeggios. Unmissable ferocity FFO: Snowing, Dreamwell, Unwound, Algernon Cadwallader. Algae Bloom 10 Year Anniversary Show at Cafe Kino.

Rapper announces our new Bristol gig guide on the microphone!
Sell out warning! Reverent folk blues played on 12 string guitar with the poetic fervour of Townes Van Zandt, summoning the same ghosts of mental illness and the mundane country sprawl. Parr isn’t a revivalist - he’s one of the last of the true originals. Charlie Parr at Exchange.

Sell out warning! While the new Swans are without their siren, we’ve had Blackmail on repeat waiting for her. Jarboe materialises from mists and dreams onto the stage in a new formation with prolific thunderman Thor Harris + added acoustic drone netherworlds from Bong heroine Dawn Terry. An unparalleled gothic industrial enigma FFO: Diamanda Galás, This Mortal Coil, Keeley Forsyth, Circuit des Yeux. SHFTD & SB pres. Jarboe feat. Thor Harris & Joy Von Spain + Dawn Terry ++ at Strange Brew.


Local bands and musicians

Local musicians are the lifeblood and new energy that constantly rejuvenates Bristol’s venues and performance spaces. Graduates from Bristol University’s Music course and BIMM provide regular injections of talent ranging from electronic music producers to classically trained pianists and orchestral musicians. Some of Bristol’s most successful bands are the first to point out that their inspiration comes from other local bands and gigs they’ve attended; with this in mind Headfirst is careful to include as much local talent as possible in it’s gig guide.

In addition to attending gigs you can also support Bristol’s musicians by buying their records from independent stores like Idle Hands Records, Shall Not Fade and Christmas Steps Records.