Skindred, Alien Ant Farm, and Spineshank Birmingham Tickets, O2 Academy Birmingham, 30 Oct 2026

On sale for 2 weeks

Event is in 6 months

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Venue

O2 Academy Birmingham

16-18 Horsefair, Bristol Street, B1 1DB, Birmingham, UK

academymusicgroup.com/o2academybirmingham/

Capacity: 3,000

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Additional details

Doors open: 19:00

Price: £38.50

Concert in your area for Metal, Rock, Reggae, Hip-Hop, Electronic, Jazz, and Indie & Alt.

Find out more about Metal, Rock, Hip-Hop, and Electronic.

Skindred biography

Skindred are a band from Newport in Wales that endorse nu metal, and reggae rock. They have developed a reputation with their energetic live performances, and have won awards throughout their career, most notably “Best Live Band” at the 2011 UK Metal Hammer ‘Golden Gods’ awards.

Vocalist, Benji Webbe created the band Skindred with Daniel Pugsley who has remained the bass player since their formation in 1998. The band was fortunate enough to strike a deal with Lava Records and released their debut album “Babylon” in July 2002. The album made the number one spot of the US Reggae chart and number 11 in the US Heatseekers chart. The single “Pressure” made it to number 30 on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in 2005, and then the single “Nobody” peaked at number 14 on the mainstream rock tracks chart.

The band’s second album “Roots Rock Riot” was released on Bieler Bros Records. It peaked at number 6 on the Heatseekers chart and impressively number 22 on the top independent albums chart. Their third studio album “Shark Bites and Dog Fights” was released on September 21st 2009, which included the song “Electric Avenue”, a cover of the hit single by Eddy Grant. The single “Stand for Something” was released on August 11th 2009. Their fourth album “Union Black” released on April 25th 2011, made it to number 8 on the UK Independent chart, marking the band’s first appearance on a UK Chart. This album was released on the major label BMG. Their album “Kill the Power” was released on January 27th 2014, and became the band’s highest charting album in the UK yet, making it to number three on the UK Metal Chart.

The band has appeared at a numerous amount of festivals over the years, having embarked on many world tours visiting an array of countries in all of the continents. It is no wonder that they have won so many awards in their time.

Alien Ant Farm biography

Storming out of Riverside, California, USA in 1995, Alien Ant Farm is a rap rock band that came to prominence during the Nu-Metal boom of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. The group have released four albums and are best known for their cover of Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal”.

Trust me on this, there is far more to this band than just that single. In fact, Alien Ant Farm is one of the true originals on Nu-Metal, coming together the year after Korn changed the face of heavy metal with their self-titled debut album.

The band was something pretty unique within the scene itself, a band that had a sense of humour about themselves. For one, their band name came to original lead guitarist Terry Corso through a surprisingly existential thought.

He wondered whether all life on Earth had come from an experiment done by, in his words “entities from other dimensions”, and that we were being monitored by those same creatures like we were living in some kind of Alien Ant Farm.

I’m sure it was a train of thought that had nothing to do with certain smokeable substance whatsoever. At all. Anyway, they stood out at a time when Nu-Metal was a mainstream concern, so of course they were going to be big. It was at that point that “Smooth Criminal” was released; in the lead up to their first major label release “ANThology”.

It went to number one in Australia and New Zealand, top three in the U.K and topped the Modern Rock charts in the U.S. If you were alive and not living under a rock in the summer of 2001, you definitely heard it many times.

Since then the band has released a handful of albums. The band toured solidly through the 2000s as well, performing shows with the likes of Hoobastank, Fuel and on the Vans Warped Tour. There are fewer bands around with more live experience than them. And a night out with Alien Ant Farm, will surely be a night to remember.

Orgy biography

ORGY emerged in the Goth music scene in 1998 with their incredible remake of ‘Blue Monday’. The track sold over 1 million copies and is still selling 20 years later.

Orgy has built a worldwide audience for the brand. In late 2005, after the release of the D1 Music and Associates Punk Statik Paranoia PSP and their D1 Music /DLC Records Independent “TRANS GLOBAL SPECTACLE” DVD promotional tour the band went on a hiatus to work on their side projects. In 2011, after seven years of demand from fans for new music and a tour, founding member Jay Gordon (vocals) decided it was time to kick things back up and begin recording and touring again in support of ORGY’s fans.

Born in San Francisco, CA, Jay Gordon was heavily influenced by music from a young age. After playing bass for several years and working as a producer and engineer on several albums (including Coal Chamber’s self-titled album and others), Jay was introduced to four other musicians who, with him, would eventually form ORGY. After establishing themselves in the scene, the band was noticed by Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis and signed to Elementree/Reprise records. Jay did an incredible remix of the Linkin Park song Points of Authority, which was the first video and single off of The Reanimation album and sold an incredible 7.1 million upon release. Jay went on producing and working in the studio with multiple artists. After many unsuccessful attempts to reconnect with each other, they decided to go their separate ways.

Live reviews

A Skindred show was one of the first gigs I ever went to as a kid (at least without my parents) when growing up in Exeter. I caught them not long after Welsh frontman Benji Webbe had formed the ‘ragga metal’ outfit – following the demise of his first cult band, Dub War – at The Phoenix in Exeter. They were damn incredible in the flesh, especially considering this was sometime before the release of their first album. Around the release of that debut, Babylon, I saw them a bunch of times (their own gigs, festivals and supporting slots, including Soulfly in London). For years they remained a painfully underappreciated live metal band; surely Webbe is one of the greatest UK frontmen of the 21st century! He has such a unique presence and vocal range, prowling and barging around the stage while he switches between melodic singing, reggae rapping and guttural growling. No matter where they are playing or what time their set is, Webbe always manages to evoke moshing and mass sing-a-longs.
I most recently saw them in Belgium at Dour Festival and they were one of the weekend’s highlight. The nu metal-tinted riffs of ‘Warning’ and ‘Nobody’ had people bouncing, while the dancey metalcore drumming of fellow Exonian Arya would’ve made the Enter Shikari drummer weak at the knees. But, of course, it was Benji who was the focal point – as is now customary at Skindred gigs, Benji got the whole crowd to whip an item of clothing around their heads during the memorable ‘Newport Helicopter’ mosh. Exhilarating.

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cliverozario

Anybody who only knows Alien Ant Farm for their classic cover of Michael Jackson’s ‘Smooth Criminal’ back in 2001 - that’ll be most people, then - might be surprised to know that they’re still a going concern; the truth is, though, that they’d already carved out a significant cult fanbase long before one of them decided it’d be a good idea to record a version of the King of Pop’s classic that would pay tribute to him and parody him in equal measure. After forming to play live in 1995, their first record, the cheekily-titled Greatest Hits, was an underground success four years later, by which time they were already deep into the kind of nu metal sound that would define their second, DreamWorks-released album, Anthology, a global success. In keeping with the tone of their songs, and indeed music videos, Alien Ant Farm live shows are lighthearted affairs, with bassist Tye Zamora taking on the role of class clown and proving that the bassface was alive and well long before the girl from Haim took it to the masses. They haven’t toured the UK in a while - a Manchester show in their 2002 heyday met with a one-star review from The Guardian - but with Always and Forever, their first record in eight years, slated for later this year, a long-overdue return could be on the cards.

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Joeg_67

Synth rock is an extremely exciting genre of music for me, and Orgy’s adaptation of the style to what they have coined ‘death pop’ is an innovative manipulation and fusion of genres. Their catchy tunes and choruses reminiscent of mainstream pop music encourage the audience to dance and sing along, which has the band in an ideal position for putting on great shows.
Although the line up has changed since their hiatus, Jay Gordon has held together the roots of the band, and along with their new member, their authenticity hasn’t been lost at all, and their shows are as strong as they ever were. To remind everyone of this, they opened the show with the track Blue Monday, from way back in 1998. The crowd was full predominantly of long time fans, so we were all singing along to the famous song.
Their talents on their respective instruments are incredible, and the guitar solo battles had everyone screaming for more. When they played their tracks from Punk Statik Paranoia, they encouraged everyone to sing along, and taught us some lines of the chorus, and held out the microphone when we got to them. The performance was like nothing I’d seen before, band members jumping off the stage, guitar solos with epic dancing, and s really tight and competent band.

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