7 festival highlights: Music
From metal gigs to revenge-filled operas, here are our top music picks this festival season
This Is The Kit
Paris/Bristol singer songwriter Kate Stables brings us more of the Kit live experience and that alt-folk vibe last heard on album in 2023’s Careful Of Your Keepers.
La Belle Angele, 25 August, 7pm.
Knight’s Dream
Inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this new musical has an underpaid and overworked bartender finding himself in a twisted love-triangle game while a new ‘drug’ is doing the rounds.
Space Niddry Street, until 22 August, 8.50pm.
Pascol
Five vocalists transform stories shared in the room into improvised compositions using only voice and physical expression. Unique certainly.
Space Niddry Street, 24–29 August, 9.15pm.
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs
The Geordie metallers released their fifth album last year with Death Hilarious being dubbed by Metal Sucks as ‘pure sludge’ (a good thing, we think) which continued their worshipping at the Black Sabbath altar.
La Belle Angele, 20 August, 7pm.
Endometriosis: The Musical
This musical from Ripped Nylons features one woman’s ghastly journey through the healthcare system as she attempts to get treatment for an illness few there understand and even less seem to be bothered about.
Gilded Balloon Patter House, until 31 August, 4pm.
Colin Currie Group
The iconic work of Steve Reich is put under the microscope and onto the stage by Currie’s gang, including ‘Clapping Music’, ‘Radio Rewrite’ and a couple of world premieres.
Usher Hall, 28 August, 7pm.
Verdi’s A Masked Ball
Zurich Opera lay on Verdi’s classic work that’s rammed full of desire, politics and treachery, a piece so controversial that he had to relocate the setting from Sweden to Boston.
Festival Theatre, 26 & 27, 29 August, 7pm; 30 August, 2pm.