Adam Ant

Bridgewater Hall | Manchester

Nov 21st 2025 

Unplugging his jukebox, Adam Ant still implores us to try another flavour, and it tastes good. His current greatest hits and deep cuts set showcases songs that were a mixture of massive hits or deep cuts escaping from the forbidden zone between art rock and pop. Decades later, they still sound and feel urgent and somehow still enthral as curios and standards. 

Some people are natural born stars. Dressed to the nines and staring at the sold out theatre, Adam Ant is almost a byword for the term and a prime example of punk’s potent possibilities of recreating yourself as a work of art. Back in the post-Pistols meltdown, Adam and the Ants were the wild hearted outsiders and the freak band for the inner core of punk’s foot soldiers. In one of the most unlikely crossovers in pop culture, they somehow grabbed a victory from the jaws of defeat and became a pop sensation with an artful and exuberant pop.  Generations later, Adam’s potent power still sells out big theatres with a hits package that sees these off-kilter songs retain their freshness despite the cruel tick-tock of time.

Tonight was a reminder of just how compelling this pop exotica can still be, whilst underlining just how damn art rock, weird and wonderful it was. Few people would ever aim for the charts with songs full of tribal drums, feedback and chants about being a warrior, yet Adam made it work, and Kings of the Wild Frontier and Dog Eat Dog sound as thrilling as ever and are welcomed like dear old friends with the older crowd shaking their bones to those still infectious tribal rhythms.

This may be a greatest hits tour but Adam still performs with the level of intensity that made him stand out in his post-punk shenanigans. His eyes stare into the audience and his commitment belies his seventy odd years, whilst his vocals somehow still soar when needed and defy the occasional crack to own the songs. In his tricorn hat and knee-length boots he is still very much the amalgam of the folk heroes and outlaws that his former mentors Malcom McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, celebrated. It’s a ragamuffin mix of pirates, bikers and dandy highwaymen – exotic/erotic outsiders that the Sex shop pair embraced and the ever artful Adam had carved into his own vision.

His current band is razor tight and play the songs with a total joy. They switch their playing from the claustrophobic and dark magus earlier stuff like Red Scab and the quirk out of Man With Egg On His Face to the Kings Of the Wild Frontier cinemascope tribal rushes to the big anthems like Stand and Deliver. Many of the old hits like Puss n Boots sound even better decades later, live freed from their eighties production. The same goes for Prince Charming in what was once a slice of glam camp pop, now sounding heavier and oozing an unexpected power. 

The twin drum assault of the ever fantastic Jola and her new drum buddy, David Green creates a powerful and complex percussive backdrop that was always the calling card of the prime time Ants. It’s the twin kits perched high above the stage on big theatrical drum risers that give the band so much pop exotica potential, that is the rhythmic USP far from the trad 4/4 of rock drummers. New bassist Jon Poole digs in for a rock n roll edge and switchblade guitarist Will Crewdson sounds as cool as he looks and visually and sonically is a perfect Ant Warrior. 

More than a mere survivor Adam is still in the zone. He inhabits these cinemascope salvos and makes them feel of the now. With this level of intensity, he could easily play out permutations of his back catalogue every year and it would still be enthralling but it would also be interesting to see where else he could take this maybe adding songs like Vince Taylor from his more recent Blueback Hussar album into the set or even new songs. There was talk of a new album under the great title of Bravest of the Brave a couple of years ago which would have been intriguing. Whilst the older hits are great to hear in their resplendent glory and it’s understandable with a solid gold catalogue like this to not have to chance new horizons, there is still a curiosity to see what the ever artful Adam could bring back from those wild frontiers.