Rizzle Kicks – O2 Institute, Birmingham UK

Published by

St Jimmy

on

28th Aug 2025

Today’s post is a bit different as Rizzle Kicks (Jordan & Harley) are a hip hop duo rather than a rock band! They perform with a full band consisting of guitar, bass, drums and even trumpets, which is more than we can say for some other bands we’ve seen. There have been a few bands without bassists and others that perform to backing tracks.

It’s great to see the duo back performing together after their hiatus in 2016. This tour is to promote their new album ‘Competition is for Losers’ which we have added to our signed vinyl collection.

This is our second visit to the O2 Institute after seeing Punk Rock Factory there last year. The institute has multiple floors with different rooms so they can host multiple events at the same time. Once we arrived we went to check out the merchandise outside the room Rizzle Kicks were playing in, then made our way into the room, this time we were on the floor rather than the balcony which was packed out, so we decided to stay at the back where we got a good view and easy access to the bar.

Bea Maher was performing as we got in, she plays guitar with a backing band and fuses soul, funk and jazz, she performed ‘My Way (Come Over)’ & a cover of ‘American Boy’ which she smashed! She was really easy to listen to and we enjoyed what we saw of her set.

Bea Maher – My Way (Come Over) (All Rights Retained By Bea Maher)

After a short break it was time to see Rizzle Kicks, they came out performing ‘Lost Generation’ followed by ‘Dreamers’ which got the venue bouncing. They interacted with the crowd a lot and you could tell that they were down to earth guys, Jordan’s dad was on the bass, their school friend playing in the brass section and the drummer they coincidentally met at a takeaway, what’s not to love?

Rizzle Kicks played ‘When I was a Youngster’ which samples ‘Revolution Rock’ by punk legends The Clash, they also played ‘Skip to the good bit’ which samples the melody from rock band EMF’s hit ‘Unbelievable’ which proves you can mix rock and hip hop and it can work really well.

They put on an energetic show all night and played a nice mixture of old hits with ‘Mama Do the Hump’ bringing out the energy in the crowd, and a rock version of ‘Travellers Chant’ where Harley was playing the guitar and Jordan shouting “I’ll be there”.

Rizzle kicks played songs from their new album ‘Undefeated’ & ‘Javelin’ finishing their 16 song setlist with the massive ‘Down With The Trumpets’ which got the room shaking!

We really enjoyed the show and loved how the duo interacted with the crowd, spoke about mental health struggles and how many instruments were on stage, if you haven’t been to a gig with trumpets, we recommend you go to one, you won’t be disappointed!

This was Rex’s second time seeing the duo live, and although the first time was over 10 years ago they had the same energy and were still just as good as they have always been!