Each year since 1996, Tennent’s Lager have given every unsigned musician in Scotland the chance to play their biggest gig ever in front of the country’s most devoted music lovers at T in the Park on the T Break Stage.
This year is no different and, following almost 1400 entries and a supremely strong standard as ever, 16 of Scotland’s most exciting unsigned artists have been selected by a panel of T Break judges and industry experts to share the bill with festival headliners Muse, Eminem and Kasabian.
These include the only Dundee band chosen this year, indie-rock-pop trio Make Sparks, who have deservedly been recognised as one of this area’s finest talents.
They follow in the footsteps of a long tradition of localy-based bands on T Break, including Snow Patrol, The View and The Law.
Lead singer and guitarist Craig Parker told Rocktalk just how chuffed he, brother Adam (drums) and bass player Robert Garland are to finally get the chance to play at Scotland’s biggest festival.
“We’re really, really excited about it. We’ve always wanted to do the T Break stage and in fact we banned ourselves from going to T in the Park about three years ago,” he said.
“We said ‘Right, we don’t go back till we’re on the other side of the barrier.’ We missed Rage Against The Machine and everything but we were determined to get there.”
It’s just reward for probably the hardest-working band around, having gigged relentlessly over the past couple of years and spent the rest of their spare time in the studio.
“It’s been a bit mental. We almost reached burnout stage, I think, but we got through it. There wasn’t any bad feeling between us but we were really tired. I think from May to May over the past year we played about four or five gigs a week, just to pay the bills.
“But we wrote new songs and worked out a new show during that time as well. We didn’t have time to stop apart from August last year when I got married and was on honeymoon so we stopped for a month.
“I really can’t wait. We’re in the studio rehearsing next week we’re not sure yet what set we’ll do; we’ve got a couple of ideas. We’ve been playing an Eminem number in the set for ages so we’ll probably do that as well.
“We’re the last band on the stage on Sunday night, at 10pm, I think it’s the crossover time between Madness and Kasabian so, hopefully, we’ll get a good crowd.”
Hopefully indeed, and all local music fans should make a point of nipping down to the T Break stage for that one.
More Rocktalk connections come in the shape of the Truscott twins, Andrew and Michael, of Glasgow band The Seventeenth Century.
The guys are from Wormit and went to Madras College.
Also from Rocktalk country and looking forward to their slots at T Break are The Ray Summers and The Draymin.
To plan which bands to catch over the weekend at the T Break Stage, you can check out their demos at www.tennents.com/tbreak