Local bands poised to play at T in the Park

The River 68’s and MakethisRelate will both be appearing at Scotland’s biggest live music event, on Saturday. The River ‘68s take to the T Break stage on Saturday, July 9 while MakethisRelate won a spot with the Red Bull Bedroom Jam stage and tour several festivals around the UK.

The River 68’s are Craig McCabe on lead vocals and guitar, Christian McCabe on lead guitar and backing vocals, and Gerry Loughrey on bass and backing vocals. With a studio near the former Glasgow Apollo, the McCabe brothers grew up in Cumbernauld and befriended Gerry Loughrey which ultimately led to them forming The River 68’s. They cite their greatest musical influences as The Rolling Stones and The Beatles.

The band have gigged extensively, including an opening spot for the Stone Gods featuring The Darkness guitarist Dan Hawkins, who liked them so much he offered to produce their debut album. This was recorded at the Leeders Farm studio by Dan and engineer Nick Brine, who has worked with Oasis and Bruce Springsteen.

MakethisRelate were one of seven bands chosen by a music industry panel and the internet-using public.

MakethisRelate’s lineup is Kevin Walls on vocals/guitar, David McErlane (who is leaving the band after T in the Park) on guitar, Aidan Scott on bass/vocals and Daniel Kelly on drums. Next month also sees the release of their new single Sugar Glass, which was recorded in Cumbernauld College.

“We uploaded our video to the competition website and then the voting was done by the public and by the industry experts,” explained Kevin Walls. “We were surprised and delighted to get through, it was very tense waiting for the winners to be named.”

Their performance slot is currently 1.35pm at the Red Bull Bedroom Jam Transmissions Tent, though this was still subject to change as we went to press.