Massive Attack live review: a powerful night of unity and defiance
Sitting in a tiny café in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, I opened my phone to see a post from Massive Attack pop up on my Instagram feed. A wall of white text against a black background made my stomach drop for a second. I put down my fork and read the post, praying that the band hadn’t cancelled the show, but luckily, the statement only reaffirmed why the band remains one of the most important voices in the industry today.
The gig was still to go ahead, but the post condemned Co-Op Live’s recent sponsorship of Barclays, a company “synonymous with the large-scale financing of fossil fuel extraction, and billions of dollars of investments in arms companies that supply Israel in its genocidal onslaught of Gaza, and war crimes in the West Bank.”
Explaining their decision to perform, but only if the venue removed all trace of Barclays’ name from branding of the show, and if they promised that “no show tickets – for sale or complimentary – will be given to Barclays,” the band made clear their refusal to align with corrupt organisations.
While many artists have scrambled to appease everyone, Massive Attack make their politics blindingly transparent, using their shows as an act of protest as much as a display of musical genius. For me, Massive Attack are a true encapsulation of art’s enduring power to be more than just a piece of creative expression, but a political tool and a unifying force. At their Co-Op Live show, this was felt with undeniable vigour.
The show opened with Palestinian electronic group and Shamstep pioneers 47Soul, whose pulsating rhythms were the perfect primer. A woman a few rows in front of me waved a Palestinian flag throughout their set, and as the band thanked the audience for being “on the right side of history,” Massive Attack’s mission of creating community and using performance as an act of resistance became abundantly clear.
Massive Attack opened their set with visuals that teased fake news stories, and as stupid as many of them sounded, it was a grim reminder that we see these vapid celebrity headlines every day, clouding up our feeds instead of stories that actually matter. It’s this blend of social commentary – with many of their backing visuals courtesy of Adam Curtis – and flawless musical performance that makes Massive Attack’s shows so immersive.
During one song, images of audience members’ faces were projected behind the band, identifying them with tags in a way that aligned them with criminal behaviour, and during another, that hideous AI video of Donald Trump and Elon Musk in Gaza that we all tried to forget was plastered across screens.
However, one of the most poignant moments of their set came during an astounding performance of ‘Safe From Harm’, with statistics appearing on screen in regard to the number of Palestinian civilians killed since October 7th. The staggering amount of money that Britain has invested in providing Israel with arms, alongside the amount of US aid to Israel between 1946 and 2025, left us looking at figures too large to even comprehend.
With every song – from Elizabeth Fraser performing the hauntingly beautiful ‘Black Milk’ and Tim Buckley’s ‘Song to the Siren’ to Horace Andy’s appearance for several tracks like ‘Angel’ and ‘Girl I Love You’ – the arena flowed with a sense of togetherness. It was too much for the man sitting behind me, however, who disappeared when the surplus of political and anti-conspiracy theory messages clearly became hard to handle. Spouting sarcastic 1984 comments, it seemed as though Massive Attack’s confrontational approach cut too deep for him, forcing him to reckon with his conscience when he simply wanted to dance.
Yet, in times like these, how freely can we lose ourselves to entertainment when the world is collapsing around us? The Bristol-born band left the crowd with plenty to consider as they delivered a seamless set, where music, image, activism, and community converged.
