Features
The Beat Of The Brum: Birmingham Is Buzzing
The musical history of Birmingham is filled with great bands and milestones. Robert Plant, Judas Priest, Duran Duran, Laura Mvula, Editors, The Streets – the list of artists birthed by Birmingham is long. Most notably, the city is known as the birthplace of heavy metal, with Black Sabbath serving as its most prominent figurehead. The so-called “second city of the United Kingdom” attracts international talent and tourists, and as Pollstar’s first-ever Birmingham Focus proves, its history continues through the present.
Craig Jennings, CEO of Raw Power Management and a proud “Brummie,” described Birmingham as “the City of 1,000 trades.” He’s done well for himself across a 40-year career that led to the launch of his own company and a client list that includes major touring acts like Bring Me The Horizon or Bullet For My Valentine. Still, he said, “My working-class roots are very much embedded in me. Birmingham is a tough city, but it’s a fantastic city, and it’s given me a lot over the years.” It also fostered a resilience in him that allowed his team to come out of the pandemic “swinging.” Bring Me The Horizon has sold 125,000 tickets for their upcoming UK run in January at press time, including two sold-out nights at London’s O2. “All of our acts are basically doing the best live business ever,” Jennings said, “the only issue is the amount of stuff out there. Any one night in London or Birmingham at the moment, you can find three or four things going on. But I feel optimistic about it all, I think we’re in a good spotlight.”
Nick Reed, CEO of B:Music, the nonprofit responsible for Birmingham’s 2,200-capacity Symphony Hall and the 1,100-cap Town Hall, said, “Having spent 2021 and 2022 catching up with shows postponed due to the pandemic, we are now seeing both event numbers and audiences returning to pre-pandemic levels, albeit some genres [are] slower to recover than others. Recent shows by artists such as Suede, James, and Christine and The Queens have been highly acclaimed, with both artists and audiences appreciating the premium experience that a venue like Symphony Hall is able to offer compared to a generic rock venue. Our halls are also a great fit for the burgeoning genre of spoken word and podcast tours. Sell-out shows on the horizon include Eddie Izzard, Jools Holland, Billy Bragg and Paloma Faith.”
B:Music also hosted the 2022 event “Beyond The Bricks Of Brum,” which put the wealth of Birmingham’s talent on impressive display, including “brand new arrangements and compositions from celebrated Birmingham musicians and poets, such as Black Voices, Casey Bailey, Tremendous, Jasmine Gardosi and Sanity, who performed at Symphony Hall, broadcast to the world via BBC television,” as Jez Collins from the Birmingham Music Archive explained. Some of the lead artists invited local newcomers to be part of the performance, resulting in “one of the best live events I’ve ever been to, and highlighted the incredible musical talent emanating from the city,” according to Collins.
Patrycja Rozbicka, research lead with the Birmingham Live Music Project at Aston University, said, “The urban cultural economy of Birmingham and its surroundings has a notable value in bringing ‘music tourism’ and jobs into the city and the West Midlands region. The last research figures available suggest that music in the Midlands underpins the region’s employment of 5% FTE of the national music tourism workforce, ranked fourth in the country, behind London and the South West, South East (Brighton), and the North West. For midsize venues of 2,000 upwards in our database, it looks like gig-goers primarily come from further afield, beyond B postcodes. In contrast, and in line with cities and regions, smaller independent venues and clubs like The Hare & Hounds have much more of a local support base, though the makeup of fans can change for exclusive or major touring acts playing intimate settings, or first dates of tours.”
Lyle Bignon, a music industry consultant and NTE Ambassador for the city, working on behalf of the UK’s Night Time Industries Association, cited the latest figures from UK Music, which saw “an estimated 877,000 music tourists visit the West Midlands region in 2019 spending around £250 million – this in turn generated circa 2,500 FTE jobs.”
One of the biggest draws of the past years came in the form of the 22nd Commonwealth Games in July and August 2022, hosted by Birmingham and the West Midlands, the largest multi-sport event to be held in England since the 2012 London Olympics, featuring thousands of world-class athletes, over 1.5 million spectators and hundreds of millions of viewers across the globe. Gavin Forbes, senior marketing manager at Aston Villa Football Club, recalled, “The opening and closing ceremonies bookended the Games in spectacular fashion. Local music heroes Duran Duran and Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi wowed a packed Alexander Stadium on opening night, which celebrated Birmingham’s industrial heritage and multicultural traditions.” The Games formally closed Aug. 8, with an all-star cast of the region’s music artists including Beverley Knight, Goldie, UB40 and Panjabi MC, topped off by a surprise performance by Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne, reunited with Iommi, drummer Tommy Clufetos and bassist Adam Wakeman. “The medley of unforgettable performances reflected the West Midlands’ unique musical heritage and told the story of Birmingham’s embrace of generations of Commonwealth citizens,” said Forbes.
Becky Frall, head of tourism for the West Midlands Growth Company, said, “Visitors have plenty to look forward to in the region during the next 12 months [, including] milestone anniversaries for well-known West Midlands names such as Aston Villa, Cadbury, and J.R.R. Tolkien; international cricket at Edgbaston Stadium; the eagerly-awaited ‘Peaky Blinders’ film, which starts production in Digbeth; and major events such as the 40th Birmingham Jazz & Blues Festival.”
Jim Simpson from Big Bear Music, who took Aston-based blues band Earth from obscurity to become global icons Black Sabbath, called it “England’s longest-established jazz and blues festival and one of Europe’s biggest free jazz parties.”
He also pointed to an event marking the release of the first heavy metal album, the eponymously titled Black Sabbath, 54 years ago. Dubbed “VO6: The Birth of Metal,” the celebrations “will take place across several venues and will include live performances, an exhibition of photography and memorabilia, talks with Q&A and film,” Simpson explained.
2024 also marks the 10th year of the MADE Festival. Created and operated by local promoter Weird Science, the festival has been focusing on building a local ecosystem of musicians, street artists, and suppliers. The festival will take over various venues in Birmingham’s Digbeth Triangle, Aug. 2-4, including the recently opened XOYO Birmingham and the completely renovated Forum Birmingham. Bignon said, “Birmingham has a good spread of key venues, from 150-cap through to 17,500-cap, with a mix of independent, corporate and group ownership, for example, AMG and The NEC Group [see pages 52-53], however, there is always space for more.”
Which brings us to Villa Park, the home turf of Aston Villa Football Club. At close to 50,000 seated capacity, the stadium hosted its first concerts since 2013, when Bon Jovi took the stage. This year, P!NK (June 13) and Bruce Springsteen (June 16) revived the historic building as a bonafide concert venue. Gary Hutchinson, vice president of booking and commercial partnerships, OVG International, and MD of Chrysalis Leisure Management, oversaw the delivery of the two shows. He said, “We work very well with the local authorities, the council, and all the agencies. It was a real can-do approach from Birmingham, which went down very well.” And while it had been “special” to bring concerts back to such a history-filled place, he was already looking forward to the next blockbuster act to grace Villa Park: Foo Fighters, June 30, 2024. Sold out, of course.