Peat & Diesel, Billy Bragg, Pixies and Laura Mvula join Edwyn Collins and Van Morrison in Kelvingrove line-up

Regular Music’s Summer Nights series will be staged for the first time in three years at the 2500-capacity bandstand. Billy Bragg, The Pixies, Laura Mvula, Suzanne Vega, Van Morrison and Rufus Wainwright will all perform when the shows return. Peat & Diesel, Edwyn Collins, King Creosote, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Altered Images will be among the Scottish acts taking to the bandstand stage during the Summer Nights concert series.Due to run from late-July to mid-August, it will also feature Belinda Carlisle, Rick Astley and Richard Hawley. However Primal Scream have pulled out of two planned shows at the bandstand as they are playing two bigger gigs at Queen’s Park, in the south side of the city, in July. Regular Music director Mark Mackie said: “We are delighted to announce four new additions to the Summer Nights concert series. “Singer-songwriter and activist Billy Bragg, the iconic American indie rock band Pixies, from Stornoway, Peat & Diesel with their rip-roaring tunes and down-to-earth tales of island life and the award-winning singer-songwriter Laura Mvula join the already impressive list of headlining artists. "This is going to be a summer of amazing performances at a world class venue.” Regular Music, Scotland’s longest-running live music promoter, has been puttning on outdoor gigs at Kelvingrove Bandstand since 2014, shortly after a major restoration and refurbishment was completed. Acts to stage Summer Nights shows since then include The Waterboys, Squeeze, Steve Earle, The Pretenders, Bryan Ferry, John Prine, Imelda May, OMD, The Fratellis, Burt Bacharach, Teenage Fanclub, Suede and Patti Smith. Vega, Carlisle, Astley, Wainwright, Morrison and Hawley were among the acts due to appear at the venue two years ago, only for the Covid-19 pandemic to bring live entertainment to a half in Scotland just two months after their shows were announced. Plans to revive the concert series this summer were thwarted due to the late lifting of social distancing resrictions by the Scottish Government. Event organisers were told they could only stage outdoor events if two metre distancing rules were enforced on audiences. At the time they were called off, Mark Mackie said: “The festival has a deserved reputation for being a very special experience for both audience and artists alike. “For the audience it is seeing their favourite artists up close, the great atmosphere, mixing with friends and singing along with the crowd and for the artists, its connecting with the audience in such an intimate setting and feeling the energy from an arena full of excited fans.” Speaking about his Kelvingrove date, which was also due to be staged in 2020, Collins said: “I spent a lot of time in Kelvingrove in 1978/79, when I was an illustrator for Glasgow Parks. "I designed and illustrated leaflets for walkways and nature trails. It was a very nice job for someone like me, the only paid job I ever had. "Once, with some schoolkids on a trail, they asked me if I was a punk. I told them: ‘Yes children, I’m Nature Punk!”. "I hardly remember the bandstand then, it was disused, but I am delighted it has been returned to its original glory, hosting great music nights.”