SoP Live – Promoters of the best in grassroots live music

The SoP in SoP Live stands for Songs of Praise, the historic name of the live music night we started hosting way back when. This Songs of Praise is nothing to do with religion. Rather, it aims to sooth souls by providing quality grassroots live music. .

We have always focused on original, exciting and new music, mixing the best local and regional acts with the cream of the touring circuit. You wont find covers bands, tribute acts or the run-of-the-mill at a SoP Live show. We only deal with the most interesting, exciting and talented up and coming bands and artists. You will find each show is curated carefully to ensure all acts should appeal to the majority of the audience, our line ups are not simply thrown together, they are thought through and work. 

We work within many genres of music including Alt-Rock, Americana, Electronica, Folk, Indie, Pop, Punk, Rock, Blues, Jazz and much more.

The original Songs of Praise was started in 2006 by Rich Craven and handed over in late 2011 to local journalist and promoter Dave Franklin to continue when Rich moved to Oxford. 3 months later another local promoter joined the team and many hundreds of quality shows resulted from this partnership.

In the end of 2016, following a review of the work SoP does, with all the best intentions in the world, and after a few issues with support from venues and a general exasperation at the apathy of audiences to what we are trying to do, we said we were having a break, doing less, maybe even dare I say it, quitting? And we did, for about 3 weeks over Christmas. But we got bored. Then we had a new Bristol residency at The Golden Lion kick off, new bar The Tuppenny asked for music and we had a few left over shows in the diary and a few surprising offers from agents to whet our appetites again. So on we continued.

Over the following year, Dave gradually took a backseat to concentrate on his writing work. Ed kept the flag flying though, slipping into a comfortable pattern of weekly shows at The Tuppenny peppered with occasional other events at venues like The Hop Inn over the next 8 years. This period brought about the creation of the successful Thursday Night Music Club, our mainly acoustic, seated shows at The Tuppenny.

But, every once in a while, things change and the end of 2024 brought further change as we moved our base of operations (and The Thursday Night Music Club) down the road to The Castle Inn.

Ed is also the principle booker for festivals The Swindon Shuffle, Swinterfest and My Dad’s Bigger Than Your Dad. 

Please do check out our listings, follow us on social media and come along to a show. Chances are you may find your next favourite band.