Cambridge is famous for many things – academic prestige, punting, medieval architecture, and renowned alumni whose portraits line the walls. The press can’t resist the eccentric student rituals and culture. Know-it-all students get platforms to voice opinions nobody asked for (apparently). But its music scene? Not as much.

Musically-inclined freshers expecting the worst need not fret, however. Cambridge isn’t London, but it doesn’t need to be. If anything, the comparatively small-scale scene allows anybody with a guitar case and a dream to get in front of engaged audiences pretty effortlessly. For a start, it’s worth familiarising yourself with Cambridge’s music venues.

“The comparatively small scale scene allows anybody with a guitar case and a dream to get in front of engaged audiences pretty effortlessly”

Start off in the college bars and university venues – the best places to see and get involved with student bands. The top college bars hold regular music and bop nights with live bands and DJs, and the highlights here include Clare Cellars and the Robinson and Jesus College bars (the latter two popularly known as the RBC and JBar). Clare Cellars, and the Clare jazz club based there, are known for hosting regular jazz nights with talented external performers as well as student bands and artists of a variety of genres. The venue itself is an atmospheric, ambient-lit underground space located below the college chapel. You can also catch the occasional university Hip-Hop society event here. Hidden Rooms, just down the road from Jesus college, is home to Jazzsoc – the Uni’s hub for jazz – where events fill up fast, and get surprisingly rowdy. From personal experience, the Open Jam events hosted in Hidden Rooms and Cellars around freshers’ week are a must-go if you’re a new student looking to get right into the University’s ever growing jazz scene. It is also worth giving a special mention to King’s Bunker, a fabled and elusive night of intense techno hosted in the shadowy basement of King’s College each term. 

“The Open Jam events hosted in Hidden Rooms and Cellars around freshers’ week are a must-go”

Non-uni venues also offer plenty to be excited about. Over the years, The Corn Exchange has featured various big names prior to major breakthroughs; the Arctic Monkeys and Adele come to mind in particular. Amy Winehouse in fact opened her Back To Her Black tour at the venue in 2007, and her original backing band are returning to perform a touching tribute gig this November. The genre defying Black Country, New Road as well as country group Little Big Town have also recently made appearances. Cambridge Junction, while frequently hosting touring acts, is best known among students for its lively Slipped Disc club nights, which stand out from any old Revs outing with a mix of house and breakbeat downstairs and harder trance styles upstairs. Post-punk fans will also be thrilled to hear Peter Hook (of Joy Division and New Order) is heading to Junction this November. Local favourites such as the Portland Arms, the Blue Moon, the Six Six, and the Grain and Hop Store are known for their regular gig nights and open mics, with The Six Six standing out for its grassroots metal scene. The NCI centre, an old-school locals’ venue, mixes folk nights with occasional experimental ‘crushingdeathandgrief’ events. You can also catch the occasional jazz night over at the Geldart or Tram Depot. The brilliant Geordie Greep (formerly of Black Midi) even made an appearance at Storey’s Field Centre, a small community centre in Eddington, last October. 

If you prefer the symphonic swell of strings to thumping basslines, there’s something for you too. The University’s own West Road Concert Hall features frequent concerts from the Cambridge University Orchestra, Cambridge University Symphony Orchestra (a gripping rivalry, I know), and Cambridge University Jazz Orchestra, often performing alongside acclaimed professional conductors and composers. Evensong services in college chapels offer a unique chance to experience world-class choral performances, and offer an unparalleled opportunity for solitude regardless of personal religious sentiment.

“Maybe you could be the one to kick off an entirely new wave in the music scene”

Between college music nights and a host of town venues, there’s undoubtedly no shortage of opportunities for any student musician. That said, gigs of this type tend to fuel complaints of unoriginality and a focus on singalong covers. This is less a symptom of a lack of creativity among student bands, however, and more one of the nature of function gigs. If you want to be chosen – and paid! – to perform at college bops or May Balls as a student band, you cater to the desires of audiences and ents teams, not the other way around. It’s all well and good to moan about a lack of innovation when you’re not the one trying to keep a drunken May Ball main stage crowd dancing and singing along. A fairer critique is that the music scene lacks genre diversity. Maria Milano wrote an exceptional piece for Varsity last year on how the University’s formalised, institutionalised cultural traditions are ultimately quite antithetical to more rebellious and ‘loose’ genres. University gig nights focused on those sorts of genres – electronic of all sorts, hip-hop, experimental, even just good old rock n’ roll – regrettably remain an exception to the rule. More (supposedly) highbrow jazz and classical reign dominant. But who knows. If you’re reading this as a fresher, maybe you could be the one to kick off an entirely new wave in the music scene. College bar nights won’t know what’s hit them.