DOSS TURN UP THE HEAT AT LEITH CRICKET CLUB ON THEIR HOME TOUR
Doss (Bryden Churchmichael/Northern Exposure)
LIVE REVIEW & PHOTO GALLERY | DOSS w/ Nightcaller | LEITH CRICKET CLUB, EDINBURGH | 14th June 2026 by Bryden Churchmichael
Doss are only touring Scotland this time round. That’s what Sorley Mackay said from the stage at Leith Cricket Club between songs, before adding a few choice words about England I won’t try to quote exactly. The Glasgow electronic post-punk lot have decided their home turf is the whole point, and on a sweaty Sunday night in Leith, surrounded by folk who’d come from London and Poland to be there anyway, it was hard to argue with the logic.
I got there fifteen minutes before doors and went straight to the bar, where I ended up talking to the staff about local bands and gigs coming up. Got a beer, a badge, a poster. Then, just before the first act, I found out Oliver Tree had died. There are worse places to get that kind of news than a room full of people who came out on a Sunday because music matters to them.
Nightcaller opened and had the room from the first song. Frontman Danny does silly dance moves and the kind of crowd work you can’t rehearse, and at one point he clocked a group near the front and told them, “we got some fans in here, fuck off, this is for people that haven’t heard it.” The room laughed. They stayed. By the end he had the whole place.
Then Doss. One song in and Sorley was already talking to the room like he knew everyone in it – “long night, long life – thank you for coming out, let’s keep it going, shall we” – the kind of patter that sounds throwaway until you notice the whole crowd has bought in.
They played most of the Doss E.P. ‘YOUGOTSTYLE’, ‘BIGFELLAFUNK’ and ‘SUPERSECRETAGENT’, then ‘The Mullets Are Moving In‘, ‘Lungs‘ and ‘King of the Castle‘. There was no setlist. I asked afterwards and they couldn’t remember what they’d played, and somehow that felt right.
It’s the drums that drive Doss. Chilton Fawcett locks in and the whole thing builds on top, electronics and guitar stacked over a beat you feel before you hear it. Sorley doesn’t really sing over the top of it so much as rant and chant, more talking than melody, the words landing like he’s having a go at you and letting you in on the joke at the same time. It pulls a hardcore pit, but a respectful one – stuff went flying, folk got thrown about, I got thrown about, and nobody was a dick about it.
‘The Mullets Are Moving In‘ is the one that stays with me. It’s daft and deadly serious in the same breath, and you find yourself laughing at it while it tells you exactly what’s happening to towns like ours, who gets pushed out and who moves in. That double act of stupid and sharp runs through everything they do. Live there are more of them than the two on record, and the bassist was wearing a cricket helmet – at Leith Cricket Club, with nobody seeming to think that needed explaining. On this kind of form they’ve outgrown rooms like this. It’s not a knock on Leith Cricket Club, which was bouncing all night, but Doss are built for somewhere bigger and you could feel them straining at the edges of it.
I got photos for the first two songs, then put the camera down and got in the pit. The room was shaking. A phone went flying, then another, and a girl got thrown into the stage and lost her camera before getting it back; I found a watch on the floor and held it up until someone claimed it. By the third song me and half the people around me looked like we’d just got out the shower. At some point my asthma caught up with me and I had to run out to the bar section, throw myself on the couch and pour water over my head, before getting my breath back and going straight back in.
Afterwards I went for drinks with folk I’d met at the gig, and ended up in a bar with two Zach Bryan fans – good laugh, different world. I left for food at Westport before my bus, walked out the pub, and one of them was face down on the pavement. No words.
For a relatively new band they’ve covered serious ground already, with support slots for the likes of billy woods, Sinead O’Brien, Fat Dog and DEADLETTER and a habit of selling out at home. There was BBC airplay across 6 Music and Radio 1 last year, a session with BBC Scotland, a first US tour and a run of EU dates, all of it done independently with no label behind them. You can hear how when you watch them. A band that’s toured like that, playing a cricket club in Leith on a Sunday because Scotland is the point this time round.
