Leith Theatre Launches Mini-Series Of Digital Gigs To Showcase Breakthrough Scottish Artists

A grant from Creative Scotland's Performing Arts Venue Relief Fund has allowed Leith Theatre to secure a small staff team of expertise, enabling them to produce a mini-series of digital gigs and provide vital incomes for industry professionals and production crew as well as for the musicians and artists themselves.

Hosted by Vic Galloway, this programme - Live in Leith - will be streamed over three consecutive Saturdays starting this March via the online platform DICE and will help to showcase and establish up-and-coming young Scottish artists at what is undoubtedly a crucial time in their careers.

All of the artists will be captured playing a 25-minute set in real time, to create a live concert feel and the broadcasts will include introductions and on-stage interviews with host, Vic Galloway. Each gig will feature two artists, the first duo being Connor Fyfe (youngest musician to sell out at King Tut's in Glasgow), and Retro Video Club.

Shining a light on new music (in Scotland) has been key to the programme's conception. Live in Leith aims to nurture fresh talent by providing a harbour - a safe space - for those who are sacrificing their incomes to pursue careers in music at what is always a tender time, no matter what the economic situation or industry climate.

If the funding is the anchor for the whole programme, the theatre itself is certainly the port, a place that has inspired many musicians to return already since the first stage of its revival in 2017: The Snuts for example, played as part of EH6 festival back in November 2018 and Teenage Fanclub featured in EIF's offering in August 2019. Both bands have since returned to film their latest singles in the theatre's auditorium in 2020.

Though Leith Theatre's doors have been closed to the public for almost a full year now, closed sets like these have been able to take place. In 2020 the theatre was also home to the virtual edition of Scotland's annual Wide Days music convention, EIF's My Light Shines On recordings featuring Honeyblood and Breabach and Posable Action Figures' latest music video for a single in their debut album. Leith Theatre was once a music machine in the form of legendary gigs of the seventies and eighties and is well on its way to becoming a well-oiled one for today in the new twenties through such productions.

Just as the Port of Leith once fostered connections as a confluence of old and new, production and industry - a stage that was both world-class and local - Live in Leith aims to cultivate all of these elements and bring entertainment home in 2021 (and beyond). The theatre, where community has always been at the heart of its role as a civic centre, wants to help raise the next generation of musicians, industry professionals and crew right here in Leith, safe in the knowledge that exploring the unfamiliar and investing in what is new and inspiring is always in all of our best interests.

Tickets on sale Friday the 12th of February at 10am at https://dice.fm

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