New Model Army | Terrorvision | Paradise Lost | Skeletal Family
Bradford Live, Bradford
13th December 2025

Wool City Rockers gathers artists from across the decades for an alternative opener at Bradford’s newly refurbished venue

Bradford Live opening its doors to live music feels like a landmark moment, and Wool City Rockers is a perfectly judged way to honour the musical heritage of the city and surrounding area. The former Odeon Cinema’s rebirth as a three-tiered, 3,600‑capacity venue gives Bradford a flagship space again, right in the heart of the city.

Wool City Rockers is an ambitious undertaking with two stages, a packed schedule and a sold‑out crowd new to the venue. The main stage and the ballroom are both beautiful spaces, thoughtfully restored to their former glory with thoroughly modern capabilities. The programme tonight has three headliners on the main stage with supports in the smaller ballroom.

Skeletal Family have the task of opening proceedings and draw an impressively strong crowd for such an early start. A much‑changed line‑up now sees founders represented by Trotwood and “Karl Heinz”, with Adrian “Ozzy” Osadzenko on drums, Anneka Latta on vocals and Owen Llewellyn‑Richards standing in for guitarist Stan Greenwood. Latta makes full use of the expansive stage, dancing and roaming as she smooths the edges of older material; Move, Just A Minute, and She Cries Alone all feel less primal and more mellow, taking on a new lease of life without losing their essence. As the room and balconies steadily fill, the band rise to the occasion, giving the more traditional goth strand of Bradford’s musical past a proud airing.  The finale, as ever, comes with Promised Land, which feels fitting as the band leave to warm applause.

Paradise Lost are the first of the triple headliners, stepping into a now much darker and fuller main room. The Halifax band’s thematically gothic but sonically dark‑metal attack draws from across their long career, and the full allotted set time lets them stretch out properly rather than dash through crowd‑pleasers. Frontman Nick Holmes deadpans that they are “quite an old band but still the youngest on the main‑stage bill”. The music itself remains sharp, heavy and ominously current. Much of the set unfolds from near‑total blackness, with an impressive lightshow briefly carving the band out of the gloom in stark flashes,  a simple trick that suits them perfectly and makes the whole performance feel like an incantation with glyphs flashing across the walls.

If Paradise Lost immerse the room in darkness, Terrorvision blow it apart in a riot of colour. A Neon pink sign and huge backdrop herald the hometown heroes before Tony Wright bounds on to remind everyone, “We’re Terrorvision, from Bradford”, and the band slam into My House with the ferocity of a mission statement. Where the previous headliner stalked in shadows, Terrorvision explode in a blur of fur, snakeskin, leopard print and skin‑tight silver, determined to see what this new venue can handle in terms of bounce. The stage becomes chaos in the best way: leaps, bounces, guitar‑hero poses, funny faces and even keyboard jump‑shots. Even the brass get in on the act, stepping out for sax and trumpet spotlights as the band rip through what amounts to a greatest‑hits set. By the time Oblivion caps a run that takes in Perseverance, Discotheque Wreck and more, it feels as if they really might shake the newly rebuilt house to its foundations.

New Model Army close the night in a more reflective but no less powerful mood, beginning at the beginning with Christian Militia the opening track of their debut album. On paper it is a piece of history; in the room it is urgent, energetic and painfully relevant, a reminder that the band’s catalogue of songs about local and global injustice has never really stopped speaking to the present. Justin Sullivan uses his interludes to voice disappointment at the stupidity of the world, lending extra weight to a towering Here Comes The War in the middle of the set. Later the tone softens, helped by the welcome return of violin from Ed Alain‑Johnstone, which threads through Vagabonds, Purity and ultimately Green and Grey, restoring their original recorded forms . Around them, the New Model Army “family” do what they have always done: singing, dancing and reaching towards a sky that always seems just out of reach, clinging to hope even as the songs catalogue everything that conspires against it.

Across Skeletal Family, Paradise Lost, Terrorvision and New Model Army, Wool City Rockers feels less like a one‑off event and more like a statement about Bradford’s musical DNA. These are bands that have shaped, and been shaped by, this city over decades, and it feels deeply fitting to see them woven into the story of this extraordinary building at its rebirth. Bradford Live itself is stunning inside, somehow managing to feel crisp and modern while retaining so many of the original features that give the old Odeon its character. With major acts already eyeing it, Gorillaz have just announced two warm‑up shows here ahead of their 2026 arena tour, the future looks bright for the venue’s programme. On the evidence of this first gig, Bradford once again has a venue, ready to meet that future head‑on.

New Model Army are on their Website,  Facebook, Instagram

Terrorvision are on their Website,  Facebook, Instagram

Paradise Lost are  on their Website,  Facebook, Instagram

Skeletal Family are on their Website,  Facebook, Instagram

Neil Chapman is a photographer and occasional writer based in Leeds.  His assorted works can be found at his Unholy Racket site as well as Instagram, and Facebook