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

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! Deadly double billing of gothic croon and club-ready darkwave pulse from two of the best nocturnal operators around. She Past Away’s anthemic gloom and mesmeric Turkish poetry meets Actors new wave synth bounce and irresistible male/female vocal attack in this unbeatable post-modern post-punk romance FFO: Sisters of Mercy, Molchat Doma, Clan of Xymox, Drab Majesty. SHE PAST AWAY + ACTORS at Strange Brew.

Sell out warning! Recently department My Dying Bride legend in small cap church gig with our favourite local chamber goths Dead Space Chamber Music? Whatever this dream is, please don't wake us up! Dark Alchemy VII at Church of St Thomas the Martyr.

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! Breakfest for breakfast! Breakfest for lunch! Breakfest for dinner! The loveable slacker rock slingers are ready for another round and by gum, our tastebuds are already tingling, with heavy-duty post-punk supergroup The None, carnivalesque Cornish psych-folkers Blind Yeo, and soft rock master balladeer Polhawan among the early sign ups for this year’s all-day hootenanny. Breakfest 2026 at Strange Brew.

Recommended Gigs

Thu 10th September
The Selecter at The Fleece
Mon 5th October
The Delines at Bristol Beacon
Thu 25th June
Billy Fuller at Strange Brew
Wed 25th November
OPUS KINK at Thekla
Mon 2nd November
Cola at Strange Brew
— Strange Brew

Cola in Bristol Tickets

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!

Sell out warning! Post-hardcore pit-starters Drug Church unleash fiercely cutting punk-poetry at Bristol’s own house of sonic worship! Cast yourself into a storm of driving guitar churn, brooding atmospherics, unshakable hooks and Patrick Kindlon’s stacked vocal yelps – this is a rugged AF force FFO: Turnstile, Mannequin Pussy, The Jesus Lizard, Bad Religion. Drug Church at The Trinity Centre.

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.

Rapper announces our new Bristol gig guide on the microphone!
Sell out warning! Immaculately conceived in utter depravity, Spectral Wound are truly the heinous seed of old school black metal gods... Raw as Scandi frost on bare skin, punk as pre-Viking Bathory, when that shrieking wall of sound hits, nothing on heaven or earth can touch it! A rare offering from future royalty in our sludge-obsessed and doom-driven city FFO: Lamp of Murmuur, Dissection, Immortal, Mgła, Watain. Spectral Wound & Noctule at Strange Brew.

Sell out warning! Night In Athens’ twisted gothic synth-punk and cinematic coldwave meets OWLS’ pulsating EBM for a Bristol double debut of darkwave seduction. Completed by Strange Futures’ glacial electro-punk, this is an essential one FFO: Boy Harsher, Molchat Doma, Lebanon Hanover, Drab Majesty. Night In Athens + OWLS + Strange Futures at Zed Alley.


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.