Live Review : Lordi + Sick n' Beautiful @ Academy 2, Manchester on April 5th 2025

Tonight the Academy 2 looks and smells like I imagine the inside of Alice Cooper's wardrobe would. It’s dark, and there are strange beings looming in the gloom. The smell is partly of musty clothes not worn often, but mostly it’s the smell of fear. Monsters walk amongst us, and not all of them are on the stage. Finland’s Eurovision winners Lordi most definitely are on the stage though, and their elaborate set covers an awful lot of the available space on it. 

This leaves openers Sick n’ Beautiful with very little room to work with – the drummer is so far to stage right that she’s nearly out of sight and the rest of the band teeter on the edge in grave danger of falling into the photo pit at any second. Technically this is an upgrade from the last time they were here in Manchester, where we observed them from behind the pillars of Club Academy, and it’s one that suits them. Their elaborate costumes, masks and (yet again) light-up bra bring a touch of the exotic to mundane Manchester, and their music doesn’t disappoint this time. They bring us a set of upbeat, bouncy rock with just a tinge of metalcore. There’s an engaging cover of KISS’s ‘God Of Thunder’ that warms the crowd up nicely, They are a good fit for supporting Lordi, providing a set of rock anthems that also border on disco here and there. They are also painted green, make of that what you will!  ‘Hate Manifesto’ was something of a standout track with a stompy beat and some lovely riffing, and they seemed to have a little more about them, a little more depth, than last time they were here. The singer changed her costume several times, presumably to fit with the theme of a current song, and the whole thing warmed the be-costumed die-hards on the barrier up nicely.  

There’s a bit of a KISS theme to this evening actually, as Lordi’s intro music is also ‘God Of Thunder’, and Mr Lordi himself has often been quoted in interviews saying that without KISS there would be no Lordi. He also plays a song written with Bruce Kulick later in the show, so yeah, the KISS connection is real.

The main influence of course is the theatrics, because Lordi are as much about the theatre as they are about the music. The stage set is a huge polystyrene castle with some sort of portal in  the middle through which Mr Lordi emerges in full monstrous mode. Just for a fleeting moment I wonder if there might be a Spinal Tap moment as the doors fail to open, but no, this piece of equipment seems to be doing what it should at this stage of the proceedings.

The music is the typical power metal meets pop that somehow the Scandis do so well, it oozes melody and power chords over hammer horror lyrics and although the musicianship is superb you also get the feeling that tongues are very firmly in cheeks throughout. Lordi are a serious musical force, but they don’t actually seem to take themselves that seriously!  

The band have been around since the early 2000s and have 19 albums under their belts, even though Mr Lordi himself is the only consistent member. This leads to some comedy gold during the between-song banter as they are playing some deep cuts as well as more well-known songs, and Mr Lordi is struggling with remembering the lyrics (that he wrote) and his analog teleprompter (which appears to be a roadie with some crib sheets) is malfunctioning….. This could, of course, be part of the show.

At various times he emerges from the portal wearing a butchers apron and wielding a chainsaw, or extending a massive pair of bat wings that look a bit precarious next to the polystyrene stonework. The keyboard player also comes down wielding a cutlass then nips into the portal to saw someone’s head off before starting her rather haunting and beautiful solo. Like you do. Oh yes, solos. Lordi like a solo. The drum solo is a bangalong to the theme from Knightrider. The bass solo (yes really) sounds like it was lifted from Miami Vice and the guitar solo involves a light-up costume and some lasers. There’s a puppet. There’s an old man who looks like santa who might be a computer. Or an android. It’s chaos, it’s entertainment and it’s all held together by some pretty epic tuneage. There’s confetti. The stage is as busy as Picadilly station on a Saturday lunchtime, and it all makes for a fabulously crackers yet enjoyable time.  

Of course they save the best for last. Wouldn’t it be funny, muses Mr Lordi, if we left now and didn’t play That Song? But of course when your main claim to fame in the UK is that you won the Eurovision Song Contest it’s a no-brainer that you are going to close with ‘Hard Rock Hallelujah’ and the crowd duly erupts when they do.

There’s been a plethora of bobbing and stomping all night but now the movement boils over to the sound of this epic power metal anthem that made them nearly a household name. It would be easy to look down your nose a bit at Lordi, to look at the number of band members who have come and gone over the years, to sneer at their audacity in even entering Eurovision let alone winning it. You might go into the Academy feeling a little superior to these Johnny Foreigners with their brash costumes , their shock-rock lyrics and their big choruses.

Get you with your attitude, standing by the bar at the back looking pityingly at the tattered costumes of the wannabe monsters at the front. But at the end of the night, you are going to leave this room with a smile on your face and a spring in your step, because no matter how cheesy it is in places a Lordi show is a masterclass in how to entertain, and that’s why we still love them.  

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Lordi + Sick n' Beautiful