By Kitty Staunton

The supports just don't seem to suit the bill. Me Vs Hero [4] are met with little enthusiasm from a crowd and sound more like a straight-cut copy of bands like A Day To Remember or New Found Glory... a truly questionable choice of opener. Chiodos [5] give a more promising start, but are let down by the truly awful sound quality, that makes them far too loud to pick out any of the music. That said, their charismatic performance was still met with an unresponsive atmosphere of a crowd who will be appeased with nothing but the main event.

There are only a few bands out who I can do nothing but sing praises about, yet when it comes to Skindred [9] I just can't seem to pick faults. They seem to get better and better whenever you see them. From the beefy opening riff of Bruises the entire room just went absolutely mental. If you fancy a more relaxed atmosphere at a gig, Skindred definitely is not the band to go and see as you'll find yourself utterly crushed. Tonight's show had everything that makes a live performance really memorable. Benji Webbe manages to get the crowd bouncing, pitting, head-banging and chanting along in almost every single track without fail. His stagecraft is truly unbeatable, and from the moment he struts onstage donning a shiny silver suit and top hat, he has the crowd at his disposal throughout. I've never seen a man command a whole room full of people to do whatever he pleases and succeed, yet without a moments consideration he had the entire room doing "the Wolverhampton Robot" and taking off an item of clothing during "Warning" to swing around. Benji even manages to keep on his shades for most of the show too, even though they must be completely opaque from the sweat, which might have been for the best as the crowd were looking particularly dishevelled by the end of the night as no water was being handed out. Musically, the set was the best I've seen, mashing up a huge spectrum of genres and intertwining samples of other songs from artists as diverse as Metallica to Tinie Temper and Rihanna. Skindred are one of the few bands whose songs have the same quality as pop, in the sense that you can pick up a tune instantly and enjoy it live, meaning songs off their new album, which had come out only 4 days before like "Guntalk", and "Cut Dem" still went down a storm. Benji returns in an awesome military uniform for a 4 song encore which brings a great end to a fantastic set.