Five Highland bands. One room. The Fringe just got louder.

An Seòmar on Church Street is Inverness’s newest live room — tight, loud, and built for original music. During the first Inverness Fringe Festival it gets taken over by five bands who actually come from the Highlands: HJEM, Turn Loose, Inver, Indented and The Katanes. This is not a touring package parachuted in from the Central Belt. This is the north playing its own city.

HJEM are an Inverness four-piece with the kind of live heat that already fills rooms like Upstairs and festival stages like Woodzstock. Melodic, urgent, and built for a packed floor.

Turn Loose bring the night’s wilder edge — the band you put on when you want the room to stop talking and start moving.

Inver hold the Highland line: original songs with enough space and drive to feel like they belong in this landscape, then enough punch to belong in a Fringe takeover.

Indented are the Inverness DIY four-piece who started in late 2024 and have already gone from first single to full album on their own terms. Blues grit, midwestern-emo heart, indie bite. Think Elliott Smith honesty meeting Gaslight Anthem muscle — recorded and mixed by the band themselves. Connor Barnett, Logan Gillies, Gerards Adamovics and Jack Hives don’t wait for a scene. They’re building one.

The Katanes come down from Thurso with anthemic indie rock named for the old Norse word for Caithness. Driving guitars, big choruses, Sam Fender / Snuts / Wunderhorse energy. BBC Introducing play, Belladrum under their belt, and a hometown following that already knows the words to Drown and The Meadows. Far-north swagger, city-centre volume.

Together they turn An Seòmar into a one-night map of the Highlands: Inverness grit, Caithness reach, plenty of soul, lots of original songs, no filler. Fringe week energy. Local bands who actually live here.

Get in early. All of the bands deserve your ears!

This is an over 18s event - ID will be required