REVIEW: Skindred at Manchester Academy

Rootsy reggae and blistering hot rock music aren’t two genres that should fit together. In fact, it’s possible that Skindred are the only band in the entire world that could blend the two as flawlessly as they have been doing for the last ten years. That’s due almost entirely to the genuine love of both genres that frontman Benji Webbe so clearly has.

Skindred easily deserve a place in the upper echelons of live bands of all time. Tonight’s show is testament to that. There is not a single second of the bands set that sees anyone without a huge grin on their face.

Splicing universal pop culture moments from names like Star Wars, AC/DC, The Prodigy, Metallica and Will Smith throughout a set of Skindred’s best ragga-metal floor fillers gets the crowd dancing, moshing and crowd surfing with abandon from opening track, the brand new “Big Tings,” to encore closer “Warning.”

The band themselves are on fine form, smiling along and not missing a note in the performance, but it is impossible to look anywhere other than Benji; central, swaggering, dripping in cool.

He was simply born to entertain. As a vocalist, his range between reggae patois and metalcore yelps is mighty impressive, but his real strength is as a conductor of the crowd. He demands the crowd “wave like the Queen of England,” belt back his lyrics at him and, crucially, to perform the now infamous Newport Helicopter. This move gets the crowd to take their tops off and spin them around their heads, and leaves the audience a sweaty, half naked and ecstatic mess.