Skindred – You Got This Tour // Alien Ant Farm // Survivalist // Live Review // The Telegraph Building // Belfast
We’re back at The Telegraph Building in Belfast for another great night of metal! The mighty Skindred are back in Belfast to do some damage on a Saturday night. Believe it or not, this is my very first time seeing the guys play live. I am usually inundated by requests from the UK team to cover this band, and I let them at it, but tonight I’ll have them all to myself for a change and finally tick that box once and for all! In tow, we have our very own Survivalist, Northern Ireland’s purveyors of Deathcore and the classic Alien Ant Farm as main support, so this is going to be one hell of a night.
Opening at a very early slot, Survivalist hit the stage to a modest crowd given the start time, but by the time the riffs start landing, the numbers increase exponentially! These guys are something else, one of the hardest grafting bands on the local scene. They have been busting their asses for the last few years, honing their craft, and year after year you can see an army of fans at each and every show, helping you track their progression. The guys released their full-length A Place For Those Who Suffer, Alone, and it hit hard, cementing the band’s place rightly as one of Northern Ireland’s Premiere Metal acts. Live tonight, they are ecstatic to be here playing their biggest stage to date here in Belfast, another sign of their hard work paying off as they ascend from the small local stage to the biggest in Belfast, and they are going down a treat with the Belfast faithful. The room is eating out of its hands as big Gav orchestrates the crowd to follow his every request, creating mayhem on the floor below. Great memories for the band and their legion of followers, who have faithfully followed them from venue to venue and are now on the big stage, rocking their cute little socks off once again. Well played.
Photography by Mark McGrogan
Up next are the majestic Alien Ant Farm; we all know and love some of their greatest hits, but it’ll be great to hear more of their repertoire tonight live in this fine venue. The band’s energy is off the charts, with frontman Dryden Mitchell pacing the stage like a caged animal; he rarely stands still throughout the set, whizzing from left to right and spitting out lyrics as he goes. The soundtrack, just as wanted, was a high-energy, tasty set packed with rocking numbers and dappled with their greatest hits. When ‘Movies’ wraps up, the Belfast crowd’s roars are deafening! The crowd clearly loves this band, and you can feel that up there on stage. Their sound is gnarly live; the riffage is tight, with Dryden’s vocals cutting through the mix nicely; the bass is slamming, and the drum work is seriously tasty! All in all, Alien Ant Farm would have been worth the money alone, but as it is, we have a stacked bill with Skindred still to come! Mike on drums is celebrating his birthday too, and the crowd gets the chance to try their vocals out, badly as it may be; alas, poor Mike suffers it rightly. The band rip their way through a succinct set, but make quite the impression with a killer collection of songs and, of course, close it all off with ’Smooth Criminal’, sending Belfast into a frenzy. Great set, great band, memories a plenty!
Photography by Mark McGrogan
Now for the main act: Skindred have commanded respect across the UK rock and metal scene for years.
These cats, as Benji reminds us during his set, have been going since 1999- a quarter of a century as a band and what a legacy these guys have left in their wake. The UK metal scene was never really ready for what Skindred had to offer, but some 27 years later, here they are, still going strong and in demand no matter where their feet hit the ground. With nine studio albums under their belt, there is no shortage of material to pull on; the band treat us to new music from their latest album ‘You Got This’ as well as taking us right back to their earliest days with ‘Pressure’ and beyond.
The room is bouncing, literally bouncing; capturing Benji in full flight is quite the sight. He is like a man possessed as he spits out lyrics like bullets, fusing fluid styles and genres in cross-pollinated metal with the gnarliest of riffs, making the most glorious sounds boom from the PA above. Benji always takes the time to chat with the crowd in between songs, reassuring everyone in the room that this is more than just a gig, but a community of fans who live and breathe the very essence of live music and we are all gathered together here today as one huge collective to bring a bit of love, peace and harmony back into a seriously dysfunctional world. He’s not wrong; you just have to look around this room to see how much this soundtrack means to everyone gathered here. The passion resonating from the stage is being tossed right back at the band and then some; everyone has their arms raised, singing along to every word, with Benji pulling the crowd in further with each track. He has them singing the chorus when he can, adding to the enormous wave of sound booming around this sizeable venue. The setlist is packed with fan favourites, and the party atmosphere is like few gigs I’ve ever been to; the vibe is off the charts, and Benji and the boys are on fire, delivering a show on another level. More often than not, I complain about the lack of showmanship in modern rock and metal, but not tonight. Everything about Skindred screams personality! It is easy to see why these guys have such a dedicated army of fans behind them, keeping the Skindred dream alive for both the band and the fans.
From the band delivering a blistering rendition of their own tracks ot those selected covers dappled across their set, the soundtrack was majestic! Not even a minor medical emergency in the crowd as the band closed up with their encore, ‘Gimme That Boom’ and ‘Warning ’, could detract from the sheer joy that Skindred delivered at The Telegraph Building this evening. Belfast needed a night like this, and Skindred was the medicine the doctor ordered to shake off the daily grind.
As the crowd streamed out into the cool night air, you could hear the chatter about what had unfolded before us: a killer line-up, Skindred, a legacy band in their own right, decimating The Telegraph Building; it felt for many like Christmas had come early to Belfast. Till next time.
Photography by Mark McGrogan
