On Saturday night at Glasgow’s Queen Margaret Union, Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) proved that some nights are built on conviction rather than branding.
LMHR pulled a crowd of enthusiastic RedFesters into Jim’s Bar and delivered an evening of joy and intent, a “party with a purpose”. LMHR has been doing this for years and the room made clear why. People weren’t watching; they were participating, arguing, laughing and occasionally shifting in discomfort.
The Creative Martyrs opened in white face paint, armed with a ukulele and a penchant for chaos. Their cabaret swings between slapstick and sharp commentary. A cello, audience participation and mouth trumpets became their main instruments. One poor soul in the front row caught most of the fire, but no one was safe. They asked, “Have you thought about the person you are sitting next to?” then launched into a falsetto double bass number that had half the room singing “War, huh, what is it good for?”, complete with kazoo solos.
Their bit on the Overton window sliding right was the first moment the set fully clicked. They had the crowd line dancing like confused comrades, edging toward the wall as if politics itself were shoving them. Someone eventually yelled, “Call yourselves fucking revolutionaries, get to the left”, which caused an eruption of cheers and laughter, breaking the tension.
Radkiha followed with a solo acoustic set that completely recalibrated the room. At twenty, she already has the composure and clarity of an artist who actually knows what she wants to say. She calls her sound cinipop and for once a self description feels accurate. ‘Sleep’ and ‘Starry Eyes’ had the kind of atmospheric warmth that can easily turn sentimental, but she kept them grounded with a calm, almost forensic delivery. Her cover of Strawberry Switchblade’s ‘Since Yesterday’ was the emotional peak of the night. Soft, certain and without a scrap of theatrical excess. She was the highlight of the bill.
Ace Vision shifted the mood again with a spoken word set that hovered between rap and confession. He walked onstage repeating “testing” and half the crowd ignored him until the beat arrived. That moment told you everything about his approach. He is not interested in flattering an audience. The Mac Miller and Twenty One Pilots comparisons feel inevitable, but only because he pulls from similar emotional registers. His writing is rooted in themes of immigration, faith and the contradictions of growing up between cultures. When he dropped the music and went into pure poetry, the room really listened. A few lines hit hard enough to silence the bar noise for the first time all night. When he was on, he was magnetic.
London based artist Middle Name John closed with an experimental solo set. His new album already feels lived in. I stepped outside for a cigarette and ended up in conversation with strangers dissecting politics and art, the kind of exchange that only happens at nights like this.
When I returned, the energy had flipped from quiet introspection to something loose and physical. Middle Name John moved through swirling samples, sharp lyrics and moments of controlled chaos. The final track, ‘Stand By’, reclaimed a phrase Trump used and turned it into a call for solidarity.
The turnout was modest but the atmosphere wasn’t. When reactionary voices are getting louder, nights like this remind you culture does work. LMHR operates on the belief that art and politics are not separate worlds and this show is the proof. Anti racism is not an abstract stance here; it is something enacted in real time by people who show up, listen, push back and occasionally embarrass themselves. Community only exists if people bother to make it. On Saturday night, we did.
