MOXIES AT BANSHEE LABYRINTH: SIX QUID WELL SPENT

LIVE REVIEW | MOXIES w/ Shifter, Sha Rivari & the Maybes | BANSHEE LABYRINTH, EDINBURGH | 1st May 2026 by Bryden Churchmichael

We went to Tesco before the gig. Grabbed shots of them against the cobbles and the Old Town walls, spraffed sense and nonsense. We were going to do a proper sit-down chat after but it started pouring and time got away from us. Probably for the best. Some bands are better when you just watch them.

Shifter opened. Young lads, shoegazy, guitar sounds that sit in your chest. Loud enough to break my phone microphone. Worth it.

Sha Rivari & the Maybes followed. 80s synth and 60s garage deciding to have a kid together, and that kid grew up reading the news. Retrofuturistic riffs to the freaks ae today. Sharp, self-aware, absolutely class.

Six quid a ticket, two quid a band, no turn away at the door. Banshee was full and the crowd was intergenerational in a way you don’t always get. Folk who’d been going to gigs since before some of the band were born, standing next to folk who’d never been to one like this.

When Moxies came on I took over the door so Emma could get on stage, then climbed a stool and filmed from near the ceiling. Best seat in the house.

Dan Reid started Moxies in 2024. Rick Boa, who recorded with Steve Albini in Chicago back in 2001, is centre stage in a burgundy velvet jacket, red and black striped trousers, top hat with a red ribbon round it. He looks like someone who has been playing guitar his whole life and stopped caring what that looks like about thirty years ago. That’s a compliment. Dan on the left in a red jacket over a band tee, blue Fender, vocals. Emma Chalmers on bass, zebra print trousers, Doc Martens, tattoos up both arms. Aaron Dunn behind the kit with the sleeves cut off his t-shirt because Banshee was baking, head thrown back and eyes shut mid-beat like the song was moving through him whether he liked it or not.

US radio play, a debut album incoming, a music video for Bonfire in the works, and a management deal just signed with Reaction Management. They’re not hanging about.

Ten songs. Heavy, electric, proper old school. You can hear Nirvana and Pixies in there, but there’s something scrappier and more present about Moxies live. They’re not trying to prove anything. They just want to play music and have a good time doing it. Friday night, job done.

Summer was the one that stuck. It has a line in it: “don’t danger us, don’t lecture us”. Live it lands differently than on record. Less like a lyric, more like a statement of intent. By the end someone was on the floor still playing, guitars being played with feet. It ended with Aarons drumstick flying into the crowd, an accident that was caught on camera. No photographers harmed in the making of this gig.

Nobody was really dancing. I don’t think that’s on Moxies. I think it says something else entirely, something worth a full article another time.

The crowd chanted “wan mare tune” three times. Rick leaned in: it’s awesome to see such a variety of people in Edinburgh enjoying their night. You were the energy.

Banshee was full. It earned it.

Go check Moxies out now.