08 Jan 2025 10 min read

58 Must See Live Acts: Meet The Class of 2025 Longlist

The winner and runner-up will receive a share of the £1000 prize fund from The Class of 2025 official sponsor, See Tickets.

Over the past three weeks, 800 grassroots venue owners were asked by Music Venue Trust to nominate the live acts that they believe every music fan should see in 2025.

Drowned in Sound have tallied up the votes from the members of the Music Venues Alliance and independent promoters across the UK to compile this longlist of must see live acts.

The next stage of voting will now begin, which involves a panel from The Association of Music Editors, who will help to create a shortlist of 10 acts to be revealed later in this month.

The winner and runner-up will receive a share of the £1000 prize fund from The Class of 2025 official sponsor, See Tickets.

Sean Adams, the founder of Drowned in Sound says:

“This Class of 2025 project is an amazing thing to help organise to kick off the 25th year of our publication that has always celebrated a varied selection of acts. The longlist spans a range of genres from Anti-Brexit Punk Rock to African-inspired Jazz. It’s fascinating to see which acts that venue owners, from across the nations and regions, who put on early shows by everyone from Adele and Coldplay to Katy Perry and Oasis have recommended, drawing from their vast knowledge of what’s happening in today’s grassroots music scene. There are some fantastic new acts in the longlist, including some of my personal favourites Lambrini Girls, ARXX, and TTSSFU, amongst many names that were also new to me. Massive thanks to Music Venue Trust for their assistance in getting Grassroots Music Venues to vote, and to See Tickets for backing this prize.”

Mark Davyd from Music Venue Trust says:

“With so many great new acts out there trying to build their audience, skills, experience and their careers, there really has never been a better time to be out seeing live music at a grassroots level. The Class of 2025 Longlist is a fantastic snapshot of just some of those acts which the UK’s grassroots music venue operators have already identified as contributing to the future of British music.”

Rich Collings from See Tickets adds:

“See Tickets are excited to be the official sponsor for this Class of 2025. We’re proud to already work with many incredible grassroots venues across the UK, and we’re all huge music fans here, so adding our support to this project makes total sense to us. We’ll also add that the list of artists these venues have put forward as nominees looks fantastic and we can’t wait to see who the eventual winner will be. Good luck to all the nominees!”

Meet The Class of 2025

The Class of 2025 longlist of “must-see” live acts, in alphabetical order, is as follows:

Amelia Coburn

ARXX

Benefits

Big Special

Carsick

Chalk

Chanel Beads

Cherym

Cinelli Brothers

Congratulations

Corella

Corto.alto

CVC

Deadletter

Dearthworms

Dirty Blonde

Ditz

Elles Bailey

English Teacher

Fat Dog

Freddie Halkon

Geordie Greep

Getdown Services

Gurriers

High Fade

High Parasite

Home Counties

IST IST

Lambrini Girls

Lauren Housley and the Northern Cowboys

Lice

Lime Garden

Loose Articles

Man/Woman/Chainsaw

Maruja

Melin Melyn

Mother Vulture

N'Famady Kouyate

Pale Blue Eyes

Panic Shack

Parker

Pet Needs

Plantoid

Problem Patterns

Shambolics

SNAYX

Tara Clerkin Trio

Thank

The Bug Club

The Kairos

The K’s

The Meffs

The Stray Pursuit

Tom A Smith

TTSSFU

W.H. Lung

Welly

Wunderhorse

Some facts and stats

All of these acts received at least two votes. Over 385 acts received at least one vote - see the full list of nominees here.
This longlist contains the names of artists who had multiple votes from the people who run grassroots venues and have had the expert insight, having booked and seen 100s of acts.
We asked GMVs to pick 3 artists who have released a debut album in last 5 years or will likely release their debut in 2025. Artists could be from anywhere in the world but would ideally be touring in UK in 2025
UK Music revealed in November 2024 that the music industry contributed £7.6 Billion to the UK economy in 2023. Exports revenue also hit a new high of £4.6 Billion.