So many gigs, not enough lifetimes. But it’s with a genuine spring in my step that I recommend a few top shows here. Orbital have been serving up the thinking person’s bangin’ choons for 36 years across ten albums and countless tours. Whether at a free rave, on a huge festival stage, in a blacked-out club, or the O2 Academy Glasgow (where they play on Thursday 3 April), they’re still an unstoppable force in esoteric electronica. Rather than a morass of jiggling glow sticks brandished by an eccied-up young team, today the follically challenged Hartnoll brothers are more likely to gaze out at a sympathetic sea of shining domes, as men of a certain age sway gently, nursing overpriced, warm lager. Such is the way of things as bands and their audience mature. Regardless, they will forever bring the party. 

When an act actually dies, however, you’d be forgiven for thinking that would be the end of that. Not so with Thin Lizzy, Lynyrd Skynyrd or The Wailers, who now feature few if any of their original members. You can add the latter’s fellow Jamaican legends Toots And The Maytals to that roster. When former boxer turned soul-belter Frederick ‘Toots’ Hibbert tragically slipped away in 2020 through a covid-induced coma, you’d imagine the band might have decided to hang up their stage gear. Nope. Daughter Leba Hibbert has taken on the Toots mantle and heads for Glasgow’s Garage (Tuesday 29 April) and Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall (Wednesday 30 April) to pay tribute to her dad and those pioneering ska, rocksteady and reggae classics. 

Away from heritage acts, if you want to witness the bleeding-edge of angry, working-class Britain, look no further than cerebral electro-punks Benefits. The Teesside band’s sophomore album Constant Noise sees the duo donning suits and branching out stylistically, production-wise, while lead shouter and street poet Kingsley Hall’s lyrical onslaught still continues to mirror the shortcomings of the UK’s post-Brexit social decline. His stream-of-consciousness documents smalltown life across this country and the political polarisation that is tearing communities apart. Have a listen to new singles ‘Divide’ and ‘Relentless’ and catch them at Glasgow’s Rum Shack (Tuesday 29 April). They’re visceral live and they definitely mean it, maaaan!

Listen to Vic Galloway every Monday and Wednesday night on BBC Radio Scotland.