Happy New Year! Unfortunately 2023 ground to a halt in spit of my commitment to blog at least monthly. My job cranked up the pressure significantly, and my personal interests paid the price. Solidarity with my fellow Corpgoths funding their big boots addiction from their office cells! With that mercenary activity out of the way, let’s look ahead to a few (non-exhaustive) highlights 2024 has on offer…

Top of the list has to be the chance to attend Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig for the first time. It’s easily one of the most famous goth events in the world, with an outstanding lineup of bands, many of whom I’ll be seeing for the very first time. I plan on doing a whole separate article just for the event, so look out for that. I’m running down the staggering band list ticking off band after band I want to see, many for the very first time. I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am for this!

On our fair shores, Leeds fights to retain the black crown of UK goth with Leodis Requiem, a successor to the Goth City Leeds events recently retired by the prolific Joel Heyes. From the 11th to the 14th July, crewed by former Goth City zealots and occupying the same venues, the event promises to be a “weekend of dark entertainment” that will focus on grassroots goth. Packed to the gills with established as well as emerging talent and some battle-hardened DJs, I’m pleased to see Leeds continuing the goth tradition where it all began.

Not that retiring GCF is slowing the unstoppable march of the Byronic Sex and Exile frontman and everyman. The band are gearing up to another album and supporting tour in October, but before that he’ll whet appetites with a mini-album, ‘Libertas’, about the assassination of Caesar. It’ll be released on the idea of March (15th March) with a one-off show at Boom Leeds the same night. He also can’t resist the event megalomania, revisiting both the ReVamped Weekend in Bradford, and Ravenspurgh Goth Festival online – as well as premiering a new event, Black Pilgrimage, in October. This, he promises, will be “an 8-band weekend of the best newer acts aiming to reclaim the tradition of a gothic ‘gold standard’ of quality”. Ambitious!

Further afield, the unlikely settings of Morecambe are home once again to CorrosionFest, running 8th and 9th March and packed to the gills with bands – including a couple from Europe, and I applaud this international cooperation that strengthens us all! You’ll see The Blogging Goth there in the single malt-soaked flesh if you’re really unlucky.

The UK’s premier alt-electro event, INFEST will return 23-25 August and are gearing up to make their first artist announcements very soon. Except the crème de la crème of EBM, at a slick, professional event. If that’s not enough to whet your biomechanical appetite, Resistanz is running in Sheffield, 29th – 31st March, ensuring Yorkshire is the finest home to cyberpunk in the UK.

---

Renowned as the UK goth event of the year, Whitby goth weekend is a highly localized, hard to reach, even harder to rent tourist destination renowned across the world for its events, outfits and fractious drama. Current Whitby Pavilion promoters Tomorrow’s Ghosts are skipping the traditional April dates, and holding off until Halloween 2024. Nonetheless, an array of alternative (cough) events will be on to cater to the legions of visitors that are drawn in by the gravity of this weekend.

The OG promoters, Whitby Goth Weekend will be celebrating the anniversary of the first goth meetup in 1994 that snowballed into this gargantuan gathering! Events are running in multiple venues across the weekend, with a selection below – and lest I be accused of favouritism, this is far from exhaustive! I’ll attempt a comprehensive overview nearer the time.

---

And in the preparation of this article, Tomorrow’s Ghosts have just announced their Halloween lineup for November 2024, anchored around headline performances by heavyweights ‘Peter Hook and the Light’ and brash newcomers ‘Creeper’, a pop-punk inflected post-emo outfit. There’s also returns for postpunk outfit IST IST, and West Yorkshire goth veterans Skeletal Family.

More artists are to be announced, and it will be interesting to see what the promoters will judge will be a true draw, to an event that is often a lightning rod for hostile commentary in the UK goth scene! At a time when events are fighting for attendance, there is a secret alchemy to the ideal line-up and only time will tell if Tomorrow’s Ghosts has indeed found the true elixir to tempt punters at nearly £100 a ticket on top of the myriad costs associated with a Whitby trip.

I note happily that the organisers have wisely retained the services of that premier goth DJ outfit (and scathing goth commentator) Carpe Noctum. A perfect segue then, to the goth night I’ve most patronised (in every sense of the word).

DJ HGV has helmed Carpe Noctum (in various incarnations) since ’99, and has patiently tolerated me as a guest DJ, performing artist, and heckling barfly for going on nearly two decades of that illustrious career. I pressed Howard for a statement on the future of his esteemed and established night, and he grudgingly noted…

“Carpe Noctum fully intends to continue celebrating it’s silver jubilee year in style, with a smorgasbord of musical delicacies being prepared – more international acts, returning favourites, bona fide legends, and of course we’ll be continuing to nurture the pipeline of great new talent with some exciting debuts.”

Carpe Noctum, 2024

The ever-industrious night has already confirmed the next three instalments for its loyal following who commit to bands but know the bonus benefits from DJ HGV and Misrule’s eclectic music collections as we stagger towards 2AM…!

I also want to support my new local, Nightbreed as operated by the unstoppable DJ Visra, who you can often find both attending and working at many of the events discussed here. A truly humble person dedicated to working hard on a good night for everyone, Visra is also professional and possessed of an amazing knowledge of the most niche, cutting-edge music the alternative scene – all of it! – has to offer. I count myself damn lucky they run a night right here on my doorstep, which does really well in the highly active goth scene here in Newcastle. See you there, I hope!

I am belatedly acknowledging the hard work of Kev at Floorshow Promotions, with an array of quality nights also here in Newcastle. You can catch me at their first 2024 gig on Feb 10th at the Cluny with a double header of Lizzie and the Banshees and The Reptile House – a perfect preamble to Nightbreed later that eve!

An auspicious gig on 21st March, the legendary Lene Lovich graces The Cluny, and then heavyweight electro artists Empathy Test celebrate their 10th anniversary on April 2nd, joined by Hungarian darkwave act Black Nail Cabaret in support of their stunning new album Chrysanthemum Into May. I’m particularly looking forward to April, having seen Empathy Test at their first Infest appearance in 2017 – I predicted big things for them! I also had some cynical thoughts, but I’m happy to be proven wrong!

Aside from the stand alone ‘Goth Scene’ gigs – there’s also Metal 2 The Masses this year which takes place in Trillians and all shows are free entry. There are some amazing acts througout the heats – but those of a more Goth-scene influence may be interest in symphonic metallers Odin’s Revenge (Heat 2 – March 20), Viking-influenced LN (Heat 4 – April 3) industrial rock act Play/Dead who’ve recently expanded to a full band line up (Heat 5 – April 10) and the gloom rock of Arachnarok (Heat 6 – April 17).

---

This is, of course, a far from exhaustive list. As I’ve argued many times before, the contemporary goth scene is not a national monolith of solemn event planning. Rather, it’s a scrappy confederation of persistent promoters hanging on by their fingertips to rooms for hire in pubs the length and breadth of the country. If we want to see newer talent treading the stages in Whitby, Leeds or Leipzig we need to be nurturing them at our local nights first! I salute the tireless contributors to the Goth Calendar with the most comprehensive events listing I’ve seen.

Make it worth their while! Get out there, support your scene and have a gloriously goth 2024!

Gather round, children (of the night) pic.twitter.com/4uYYDw7zmf

— The Blogging Goth (@TheBloggingGoth) January 30, 2024