Planning a trip away around a concert of your favourite artist? Well it seems there's only one place for it.
With the iconic Taylor Swift Era's tour finally coming to an end and the highly anticipated Oasis reunion tour of 2025 on the horizon, it's fair to say that live music is very much having its moment.
The current trend of 'gig-tripping', planning a short holiday around a concert, has become the ultimate way to experience live performances.
But often your favourite artist is performing all over the country, so how do you decide where to go?
Images: The Hoot Leeds
Well luckily for us, TransPennine Express has done the research for us by finding out which city in the UK is the best gig destination.
The train operator has created an index using fifty of the UK’s biggest towns and cities and scoring them out of 100 on their accessibility, enjoyability, popularity and affordability to help you determine the very best spot for your next gig.
And even luckier for us, taking first place is our very own city of Leeds.
Images: The Hoot Leeds
Leeds comes up trumps as the best gig-tripping city, scoring 74.94 out of 100 thanks to its whopping 53 music venues - equating to over one venue for every square mile of the city.
With a whopping 508 events scheduled over the next year, Leeds is really delivering for the music fans and for that, we are very grateful.
Not only that, the three venues with the most events scheduled are highly reviewed by their patrons, with an average Google review score of 4.50.
The 10 best gig-tripping destinations in the UK are:
Leeds – 74.94
Manchester – 74.19
Glasgow – 73.45
Cardiff – 73.20
Liverpool – 71.22
Birmingham – 70.47
Nottingham – 69.48
Bristol – 67.00
Sheffield – 65.76
Newcastle – 65.01
Well, that's a bit of a win isn't it? Time to start grabbing your tickets as once this news gets out Leeds will be flooded with music fans flocking to our brilliant venues. And we absolutely don't blame them.
Yes, it’s nearly time for Record Store Day 2026, and the list of the first dozen or so limited edition releases here in the UK has just been announced.
With a fair few familiar and, more importantly, Northern names on there (but of course), #RSDUK26 is set to be another great one.
A total of 15 songs have been named on the lineup for this year so far, and yet again, the drops are in support of War Child, who will also be hosting a number of very special and intimate charity gigs during BRITs Week.
The two organisations have collaborated for the sixth time after having first joined forces back in 2020, and it feels like both the annual observance and its catalogue have only got better ever since.
Plenty that have caught our attention already, and there’s only more set to come…
As detailed in the post on social media, the Record Store Day team have retierated that “£1 from every single copy sold of these releases will be donated to the charity, helping to protect, educate, and stand up for the rights of the children who are living through conflict around the world.”
We quickly noticed the likes of The Cure, Fleetwood Mac, Kaiser Chiefs, Mark Knopfler and Bring Me The Horizon, just to name a few.
Once more, here is the RSD 2026 release list in full:
Record Store Day release list | 2026
Corinne Bailey Rae – Live In New York
The Cure – Greatest Hits and Acoustic Hits (compilations)
Divorce – Live at Get Together 2025 for War Child
Dr Feelgood – Oily City Confidential (OST)
Fleetwood Mac – The Original Fleetwood Mac (compilation)
James Dean Bradfield – The Great Western
Kaiser Chiefs – The Future Is Medieval
Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris – ‘All The Roadrunning’
Nicky Wire – Intimism
Primal Scream – Echo Dek
Rory Gallagher – Calling Card
Sigrid x BMTH – ‘Bad Life’
The Streets – Computers & Blues
The Vaccines – What Did You Expect…. Demos and B-sides
As always, all of these titles will be available behind the counter exclusively at indie record shops all over the country on Saturday, 18 April to celebrate Record Store Day UK 2026.
Tom Odell announces huge outdoor Leeds show as part of Sounds of the City
Clementine Hall
UK singer-songwriter Tom Odell is set to play a huge outdoor Leeds show this summer.
Sounds of the City is making a triumphant return this summer and we couldn't be more excited.
Being added to the already star-studded lineup is Tom Odell, a Chichester-born singer-songwriter known for his heartfelt piano ballads and distinctive tone.
You may also know him from a certain John Lewis advert which made sure there were no dry eyes in the house.
The announcement follows a huge year for Tom Odell, who released his latest album A Wonderful Life and completed a major UK arena tour.
Known for his emotionally charged, piano‑led anthems, Tom Odell first rose to prominence after winning the BRITs Critics’ Choice Award in 2013 and has since become one of the UK’s most successful contemporary artists, with massive global hits like “Another Love”, which has now surpassed three billion streams on Spotify.
The ‘Another Love’ singer will perform on Saturday 4 July and will be supported by Matt Maltese.
Already announced for Sounds of the City are Dylan Gossett, Alabama Shakes, Wet Leg, The Human League and The Cribs.
The Millennium Square gigs are always fantastic fun, with previous acts including Blossoms, McFly and Mika bringing huge audiences to the city.
Tickets go on sale this Friday 6 February at 10am and you can get your tickets here.
Pre-sale starts this Thursday 5 February which you can access by signing up to Millennium Square's mailing list here.
Clementine Hall -
4th September 2024 
