THIS Saturday Scots superstars Amy Macdonald and KT Tunstall will perform in four cities to thousands of campers sleeping outside in a bid to end homelessness.

Macdonald and Tunstall will join Eddi Reader in Aberdeen, Frightened Rabbit and Kathryn Joseph in Glasgow, Kyle Falconer in Dundee and Lulu in Edinburgh, where campaigning social enterprise company Social Bite held a sleep out in last year.

The 2017 event, which saw Macdonald perform to 8000 people on one of the coldest nights of the year, raised £4 million for Social Bite’s long-term plan to tackle the problem. This year they are asking 12,000 people to sleep out in four cities, each boasting a music line-up to help keep the spirits up.

Josh Littlejohn, co-founder of Social Bite, said that the 2017 sleep out “caused a sea change in Scotland’s fight against homelessness and funded a raft of major projects, including a major ‘Housing First’ initiative which is expected to take 800 rough sleepers off the streets by 2020”.

“When I played it last year, it was such an amazing atmosphere,” says Macdonald, who’s just released Woman Of The World, a collection of tracks charting her career from 2007.

“It was a great thing, but what I found is that you then had this whole bunch of people saying: ‘Couldn’t the Government just do this or do that, and that would solve the problem?’ Well, maybe they could do this or that, but to do that, we have to pay more tax. And since no-one wants to pay more tax, we have to do other things to try and help.”

Macdonald says she was delighted to be asked to perform again.

“I love Social Bite’s ambition,” she says. “It’s like nothing went wrong last time, so let’s do it again, only four times the size and in four different cities.”

She continues: “Where Social Bite succeeds is that they are big, they are bold and they get the headlines. I think that’s really important. Charity these days, sometimes people can get a bit funny about it when they see the massive salaries that go to the CEOs and they wonder where their money is going. But when you do something like Sleep In The Park and see they make an incredible amount of money, and then you see on the news that they’ve opened the village in Edinburgh, you can see where its going and I think that’s what resonates with people.”

Macdonald and Tunstall will begin their four-city jaunt in Aberdeen’s Duthie Park where Adam Holmes & The Embers, Lau’s Kris Drever and Eddi Reader will also perform.

Next stop will be Slessor Gardens by the V&A in Dundee, where the pair will join Edinburgh folkie Withered Hand and former View frontman Kyle Falconer. They then head to Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Bandstand before finishing their journey in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens.

“I’m sure if we’re a bit late, Lulu will play another song or two,” says Tunstall of the big-voiced pop legend. With six decades of songs to chose from, Lulu will surely be on hand if the M8 is gummed up or treacherous on the night, as will Admiral Fallow, angel-voiced songstress Siobhan Wilson, funnyman Fred MacAulay and Irvine Welsh, whose bedtime story will be told to sleepers in all four cities.

Billed as a “busker” with Macdonald, Tunstall says she’ll likely perform her “two big ones” and The River, the lead single from her recent album WAX.

Playing a gig in the US a few weeks ago, Tunstall lost the hearing in one ear. Forced to reschedule dates until next year, she says the condition affected her balance.

“I lost it completely, which was rough,” she says. “The specialist, he was just really honest and said: ‘We don’t really know why this is happening’. It’s called sensorineural hearing loss, and it just happens for no apparent reason. It certainly changes my experience of things. But what can I say, shit happens. There’s a lot of gratitude for what I’ve got, I’m still here, I can still sing, I can still play.”

Tunstall performs at the Sleep In The Park after headlining the first DIVA festival in Great Yarmouth last weekend and readying the release of Hey, Mr Santa! a Christmas single written with Hollywood composer Christopher Lennertz.

“It’s about how we should be treating one another, and how we should be spending a holiday like Christmas,” says Tunstall of the track, proceeds of which go to War Child. “He has two daughters, and with the advent of the Trump administration he was losing his mind, having to bring up two daughters when they were so disrespectful, with their misogyny and racism. He was like, ‘Let’s write something that’s a low-key political statement’.”

She might just give the song an outing at the sleep out, an event which is important to her.

“I saw Amy posting about it last year, and I was really interested about what they were doing,” she says. “Homelessness is a really complicated problem and it’s not just a case of giving people somewhere to live and that’s it all sorted out. There’s no bandaid, there’s a web of issues which can lead to people being in that situation.”

She continues: “Homelessness shouldn’t be an issue in 2018. We should be beyond that as a society. I’m always really inspired with how Scotland and the Government push themselves. At the other end of the spectrum, it is somewhat embarrassing that civilised societies are just standing by and allowing this to happen. This is about a country like Scotland facing up to the challenge and raising its game across the board in terms of mental health care, abuse, treatment of trauma.”

“While I’m alive, I’ll make tiny changes to Earth,” goes the line in Frightened Rabbit’s Head Rolls Off. Following the death of frontman Scott Hutchison in May this year, it’s become the name of several organisations and something of a modest, unshowy call to action extending beyond those able to take part in Sleep In The Park to commit to raising £100.

The remaining members of the band will curate the Glasgow sleep out in tribute to Scott. Billed as “Songs of Frightened Rabbit”, they’ll be joined at the Kelvingrove Bandstand by special guest vocalist James Graham of The Twilight Sad, who will also perform a set, as will Honeyblood frontwoman Stina Tweeddale.

Scott’s brother, drummer Grant, says: “It’s an honour to play for such a special event again and we felt it would be the perfect time for us to play together again and share this special night with some of our favourite artists.”

“We had agreed to play Sleep In The Park before Scott passed and we felt that since it was something for such a great cause that we should stick to our decision and honour Scott in the best way we know – to play the songs he wrote and continue spreading his message of kindness whilst supporting Social Bite and the amazing work they do.”

December 8, Aberdeen, Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh. To find out more about taking part visit www.sleepinthepark.co.uk