By Lewis Maclean.
Southampton Guildhall felt very much in high spirits when I walked in (November 11). Skindred are no strangers to the venue, having played here several times before. I noticed it filled up quickly early on. An extra bit special tonight too, because it was sold out.
This meant the support acts played to a huge crowd. Graphic Nature were up first with music comfortably in the heavy rock category but more impressive because I couldn’t recall seeing a live drummer on stage. Any support acts tonight would have to be a bit musically out of the box to keep up – it’s the Skindred philosophy. The crowd are likely to expect interesting things but Black and Gold got people talking. They cast a mysterious stage presence with an appearance between Squid Games henchmen and a gang from The Warriors. A Gold Phantom of the Opera style masks covering half the face. On the surface they seemed to be a hip hop act but there was a rock band energy smuggled in. Some additional ingredients had been thrown into the formula but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I still can’t really. I would imagine this would be how people reacted when they first saw RUN DMC play ‘Walk This Way’ with Aerosmith. You could visible see the impressed look on people faces when they finished their set.
Skindred introduced themselves in their natural style: Bursting onto the stage with charisma and I think I even heard the Imperial March from Star Wars? There was a lot of homage tonight to various artists like AC/DC and Queen. I think frontman Benji tried to scare us with a Wonderwall cover at one point but he was just keeping the crowd on their toes. It was the usual bouncy metal rockshow as the guys show no sign of slowing down anytime soon.
They played ‘Gimme That Boom’ Live on Jools Holland a few weeks back and it was pretty loud and dazzling then, so I was eager to hear it tonight because their songs always level up at gigs. Another good thing about Skindred is they don’t neglect their earlier music. For instance, it was my friends first gig tonight and they got to hear classic like Pressure, Kill the Power, Warning for the first time, where many other acts sometimes turn their back on their earlier work. This brings newcomers into the fold.
It wasn’t actually the loudest or largest Skindred gig I’ve seen but they always seem to get the best out of the Guildhall sound system. You can always tell its going well from the crowd reaction. At Skindred gigs you are likely to see people both dancing and head banging.
At some point in the set, frontman Benji’s shares an impromptu story dialogue with the crowd, usually resulting in a parable about life, acceptance and the inevitable power of music on people. Tonight he shared a bit of his past and stifled creativity before launching into the next song. This was quite a touching moment that I didn’t see coming but another great example of how he connects with a crowd so easily.
The highlight for me tonight was hearing L.O.V.E ( Smile Please). A happy upbeat song from a positive band. The ‘Dred were described by Jools Holland as “bravely mixing Ragga and Metal since 1998” but for this one, it feels like they let a bit of Reggae off the leash. This song is delivered with Love (actually spells out the message literally). I definitely think we could do with more songs like that at the moment.
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