King Tut's: Glasgow's venues are meant to make stars. But are its promoters breaking them?

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It’s late 2022 and Sorley Mackay is standing on stage at the Poetry Club, absently contorting his shaking fingers around a chord pattern. This isn’t the first time he’s played a gig for DF Concerts, Scotland’s largest music promoter. But he knows this will be the last.

“It was quite a nice crowd, all cool cunts, everyone dressed in black, like Berlin vibes,” remembers Mackay. He’s a well built guy invariably wearing a cap, with sleeves rolled up to expose inky Celtic knots that slink around his arms. “Then I was like: ‘Fuck it, we’re just gonnae play a tune”.

Mackay looks out the Poetry Club crowd, and tells them: ‘This tune’s about fucking DF — fuck those cunts. They pay you fuck all, they’re fucking arseholes!’” 

He begins to sing: “WHO RUNS THE SHOW? WHO PLAYS THE SHOW?” When it got to the chorus, he kicks it up a notch, chanting: “DF, DF — DIRTY FUCKERS”. (Other sample lyrics: “You asked what's the explanation — these cunts are owned by Live Nation!”)

The crowd loved it — it was exactly the sort of rebellious, in-your-face rock ‘n’ roll that DF promises its punters. “People were coming up to us afterwards [saying] ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever seen’,” says Mackay, laughing. “The people who were putting on the gig were fucking raging.”

Mackay had penned the tune the night before the gig, after a run in with DF.

“We’d been playing for a while, gigging in Glasgow and doing alright,” he tells me. “DF kept emailing us, and being like ‘We’re gonna give you this massive opportunity that’s gonna break DOSS’, like really bigging it up”. Mackay had hung around the scene since he was a teenager, and had heard horror stories about DF’s treatment of acts. The offer had piqued Mackay’s interest, however — he’d become tired of people asking why DOSS didn’t work with DF. Then DOSS asked about the fee. It turned out to be £30, for a supporting slot. The band were furious. “I was like, fuck that, man.” This was, case in point, exactly why DOSS didn’t work with DF.

“[The headliner] Haydn emailed [saying] ‘Aw, the fee’s [now] £50’.” But then came the rub: “The fee was actually [still] £30, and he had put £20 of his own money into it.” The headliner was subsidising the promotion company at their own sold-out show. Mackay had been feeling discontented about working with Glasgow music promoters for a while. For him and his band, this situation was the final straw. Mackay had an idea. “I said: ‘Let’s do it [the gig], but we’ll write a tune about DF’. 

The result is: “a bit fucking knuckle-draggy”, he laughs. But he stands by it, still playing the tune at DOSS’ shows. He’s been told that DF Concerts know about the song — and “fucking hate it”. 

“I think King Tut’s is just lame and all man,” he says. “It’s not a dive bar.” But surely, he would kill to play there?

Petrol money

Despite DOSS playing at the Poetry Club, a venue inside SWG3, Sorley Mackay cited King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut to me because its position as the spiritual home of indie music in Glasgow has made it a lightning rod for resentment. Despite its reputation and line-ups, Tut’s is decidedly not independent. It’s owned by DF Concerts, who dominate the Scottish live music market. The company also runs the TRNSMT, Summer Sessions, and Connect festivals. 

For their part, DF Concerts are owned by multinational behemoth Live Nation, who have a 66.4% market-share of outdoor, arena and stadium concerts in the UK. (They also own Ticketmaster of dynamic pricing notoriety.) To Mackay and others, King Tut’s is the symbolic site of a battle between music promoters and artists for the soul of the city’s independent music scene.

Beyond Barrowland, it’s maybe the city’s most storied music venue. Founded in 1990, King Tut’s is probably the best-known small venue of the Britpop era. In 1991, Blur played their first ever gig in Scotland at Tut’s; two years later Oasis, having crashed a gig there and blagged their way onstage, scored a record deal with Alan McGee of Creation Records. Radiohead and The Verve played the venue that same month. Later came The Strokes, The Libertines, Arctic Monkeys, The Killers, Franz Ferdinand. 

The message to any kid with dreams of becoming a rockstar is simple: play Tut’s, and the world could be yours. Basically, every hungry Glasgow act wants a slot there. But it’s not that easy. 

Mark*, a Tut’s veteran who spoke anonymously for fear of repercussions, finds it ironic. “You go in, and the steps have all these people that have played there… You’re like ‘Wow, all these people have had long lasting careers’. That’s because they didn’t have to sell X amount of tickets to pay for their petrol.” 

Glasgow prides itself on its alternative, independent music legacy. Yet in over 20 years, that scene hasn’t produced a truly big act. No group from the city has performed on Saturday Night Live (something of a signifier for international success) since Franz Ferdinand in 2005. Artists like Mark and Mackay, have identified one obstacle they think prevents Glaswegian musicians from launching: the local promotion system.