London based Hard Rock trio City Of Thieves (Track Of The Day) play a pre-Xmas home town show at The Big Red tonight. They released their debut album, ‘Beast Reality’, in mid-October and will tour to promote it in early 2019 with Frontiers labelmates Inglorious including London's Shepherd's Bush Empire on Friday 1st February.

Regarded as one of the world’s most highly-respected Prog Rock bands, IQ (Video Of The Day) celebrated their 36th anniversary at their now legendary Christmas bash at a sold out Islington Assembly Hall last night. Their set included songs from their as yet untitled follow-up to their highly successful eleventh studio album 'The Road Of Bones', which is due out in September 2019, plus tracks from their recently released twenty-fifth special anniversary edition of ‘Ever’.

Christmas comes early with four stand out gigs in London tonight. Which one are you going to? Firstly, legendary Neo-Progressive Rock quintet IQ bring over 30 years of genre-defying sounds to London's stunning Islington Assembly Hall at their traditional Christmas bash. Meanwhile, at the Oslo, Amigo The Devil performs peripheries of Metal, Dark Folk and Americana, claimed by none but with roots in all three. Also at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, playing a mix of classic Rock combined with Progressive elements, Folk, Punk and contemporary Rock are Finnish heroes The Von Hertzen Brothers. Finally, performing at Wembley's SSE Arena, is Canada's finest Monster Truck (pictured), as part of a holy Rock trinity alongside Black Stone Cherry and The Cadillac Three!

With the birth of Brave Rival in February this year, the band are releasing their debut single 'Magpie' today through Mayfield Records and if you want to hear this track live, get along to their free launch party tonight at The London Stone in Staines, where doors open at 7.30pm and they will be performing a full set. They have also written an album's worth of exciting new material combining Blues, Rock and Soul and last month they supported the Billy Walton Band on their UK tour (see today' Video Of The Day).

Today's Blues Club Podcast Track Of The Day is another two hours of non-stop Best in Blues and beyond with More Music and Less Chat featuring music from Tom Hambridge, Smokey's King Shufflers, Snakewood, Mike Harris and Billy F. Gibbons (pictured).

British Melodic Hard Rock icons Magnum (Video Of The Day) have next month lined up the release of a brand new, very special album, ‘Live At The Symphony Hall’, on Friday 18th January on Steamhammer/SPV. Recorded this year on 19th April at the exhilarating final concert of their two month long ‘Road To Eternity Tour’ in Birmingham, ‘Live At The Symphony Hall’ contains an impeccable mix of Magnum classics and cracking new songs from 2018’s studio album, ‘Lost On The Road To Eternity’, which was universally acclaimed as one of, if not the best album of the group’s entire career to date when released at the end of January this year.

Check out new photos today of the sold out Slow Readers Club London Scala gig from Tuesday here plus additional photos from Wrinklystock VII from last Friday here - courtesy of Bruce Biege and Matt Thomas respectively. With more photos to come of support band Pins, this was the penultimate gig of The Slow Readers Club tour, which has seen them play the biggest shows of their career so far, with Glasgow's School Of Art and their last date, a hometown show at Manchester's O2 Apollo tomorrow, also sold out. Also watch out for more photos of Wrinklystock VII to come.

State of Salazar is back with another total and absolute AOR masterpiece - their new album 'Superhero' released last Friday! Considering that bands such as Toto, Queen, Journey, Survivor and especially Bill Conti and Vince DiCola have influenced them, State of Salazar have a lot to prove. There is no mistaking that the band delivers “feel good” music, and it is no wonder, since one of the biggest influences is “training montage” music. This is just one of many reasons why State of Salazar actually stands out from many of the other bands in the same genre. Consisting of Marcus Nygren – lead vocals and backing vocals, Kevin Hosford –keyboards and lead vocals, Johan Thuresson –guitars, Johannes Hansson –bass and Kristian Brun – drums, their songwriting, arranging and instrumental performance show that this is a band that wants to develop and contribute to the Melodic Rock genre as their Track Of The Day testifies.

Following the release of their debut studio album 'High Water I' this August and a sold-out European acoustic run, The Magpie Salute (Video Of The Day) completed their November/December European tour at a packed Electric Ballroom in London's Camden last night. The band performed 26 shows in ten different countries during the tour, bringing together the reunited definitive Black Crowes guitar duo of Rich Robinson and Marc Ford, bassist Sven Pipien (also from the Crowes), lead singer John Hogg (Hookah Brown, Moke), drummer Joe Magistro and keyboardist Matt Slocum. Produced by Rich Robinson and recorded at Dark Horse Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, the 12-song 'High Water I' is a musical union of swaggering Rock ‘n’ Roll, Psychedelic Blues and campfire-worthy storytelling!

International Blues/Rock/Soul guitarist, singer and songwriter Ben Poole's UK tour continues at The Half Moon in Putney, London, tonight. The tour follows the release of Ben’s new studio album 'Anytime You Need Me', released in mid-September via Manhaton Records. The new album follows Ben’s critically acclaimed albums 'Time Has Come' (2016) and 'Live At The Royal Albert Hall' (recorded by the BBC in 2014). 'Anytime You Need Me' was recorded at Superfly Studios in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire, and was produced by Wayne Proctor, who is Ben’s drummer during the tour, with Beau Barnard on bass and Joe Mac on keyboards.

On today's Rock On The Ridge Podcast Track Of The Day, there's music from Broken Witt Rebels, The Brew, Western Sand, Gun, Brothers Osborne, Bus, Uriah Heep (pictured), Inglorious, Stone Broken, Last In Line, Joe Perry, Blue Nation, Def Leppard, Rockick, Puppet Kings, Klogr, Saint Apache, Those Damn Crows, Rival Sons, Ian Siegal, Gorilla Riot, Albany Down and on their Introducing Stage, two in a row from Frozen Crown.

With the announcement this week of who is appearing on the main stages at The Great British Rhythm & Blues Festival in 2019, today's Blues On The Radio Podcast Track Of The Day is a preview of just some of them. Coincidentally every one in today's playlist either has appeared or is going to appear at The Tuesday Night Music Club, Coulsdon, Surrey! But regardless of which stages you might see them on, you get a great hours music with The Voodoo Sheiks, Geoff Achison, Paul Lamb, Rainbreakers, Starlite Campbell Band, Troy Redfern, James & Black, Tom C Walker, Greg Coulson, Beaux Gris Gris, Sari Schorr (pictured), Giles Robson and Northsyde.