Ghost Utilita Arena Birmingham review: 'All that's left to do is repent'

It was perhaps the most outrageous queue I've ever seen at a Birmingham gig in my 20-odd years of seeing shows at the NIA.

That's the Utilita Arena, on paper, the city's biggest gig venue outside of Villa Park, and tonight it played host to an unholy ritual with an almost sell-out show drawing fans to the canalside spot to see Swedish band Ghost.

I've seen Ghost play in Birmingham almost every time they've visited, from a little Institute gig that felt positively intimate in comparison to the arena concerts they've graduated to. They're wielding this new power in interesting ways.

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For this gig, for the first time in the history of them playing Brum, Ghost were doing what elite global comedians do - they insisted every mobile phone is locked away inside a pouch that you can't access again until it's time to leave.

The Skeletour is Ghost's biggest to date and Brummies showed up in their thousands, joining queues that snaked along the cut in the direction of Edgbaston and, in the other direction, almost all the way to the back of the Library of Birmingham as thousands of bags were searched and phones were locked away.

It meant that by the time Ghost hit the stage, they were already half an hour behind schedule. It was polite - by that point there was a bum in almost every seat and the floor was filled with people, wearing skeletal facepaint, nun outfits and, arriving to quite the ovation, a guy dressed as Jesus Christ himself.

It was the first display of blasphemy we'd see in a great big show full of them. It's what we were there for, honestly.

A good 20 minutes or so of choral music set the scene before a huge black curtain dropped to show one of the most beautifully intricate sets I've ever seen in this arena - it's no wonder tickets were about £80 a pop - there's not a single thing that's been scrimped on.

Frontman Papa V Perpetua's costumes, and those of the Nameless Ghouls band, change with every Ghost album and this Skeleta look is their coolest yet, all spangles and skulls and sinister wings.

An opening rendition of new track Peacefield was a chance for fans to hear something fresh ahead of the album release on Friday, April 25 before Lachryma (also new) sparked a singalong thanks to its four point something million Spotify plays.

Under a giant mechanical Grucific logo, all bright lights and sparkles, the band hit Meliora opener Spirit before launching into Prequelle track Faith.

A costume change into long, flowing vestments saw Papa V raised above the stage for Majesty, a throwback to 2015 when the band were all swinging incense and sexy nuns giving communion on the front row.

Given this is the first time we're seeing the new iteration of the frontman (spoiler alert, they're all Tobias Forge in different gear), Papa introduced himself afresh before the stage was bathed in pink light for The Future Is A Foreign Land. There was lots of swooning in the stands for this one.

Cirice kicked up back into high gear, a total banger accompanied by yet another curtain drop to reveal towering stained glass windows that turned the stage into a church; Ghost might be too big to do the incense and communion stuff effectively these days, but they've got the budget to transform the space in a way they probably never had before, which felt just as transformative.

We didn't need lyrics on the big screens for Darkness At The Heart Of My Love, everyone sang it with gusto, and we did the same for Satanized, which was only released in March but has become an instant hit among the faithful. Or should that be, the unfaithful?

Either way, a return to Ritual, from 2010 album Opus Eponymous, reminded many of why they had ever been faithful to this band in the first place. The Nameless Ghoul playing guitar had shed blood somehow and had smeared it across the instrument.

After a brief moment missing, Papa emerged from beneath the stage, holding a cowbell, which he handed off to a Ghoul for the Birmingham debut of Umbra.

It might have been written in the 1980s, a synth-heavy track that could be seamlessly spliced into The Lost Boys soundtrack, or perhaps some obscure cult horror movie. Guitars cried, keyboards were licked and I made a mental note to buy that new album the minute it comes out on Friday (I hear there's a midnight release planned at Stylus Music in Lichfield).

Yet another costume change heralded Year Zero, with thousands singing "Hell Satan" on Easter Sunday. Years ago, it would have been the kind of ungodly ritual that could spark satanic panic in this city, especially when a pyro explosion finish shattered the windows of the makeshift church.

He Is was accompanied by beautiful visuals that culminated in what was left of the church crumbling entirely to reveal a burning hellscape, with torches aflame for Rats. Kiss the Go-Goat was as psychadelic as you'd imagine.

Ghost pulled out their old ticker tape cannons for Mummy Dust, though the tape and bank notes didn't make it to the audience. Fortunately, they had a leaf blower on stage to distribute more of it in time for Monstrance Clock, a song they frequently finished on in their early days, back for 2025.

The band has garnered thousands and thousands and thousands of new fans in recent years and it all feels very much by design. Tobias turned his little church into a Super Church, with anthemic bangers and a frontman to match, writing arena music in the days before they could even fill an arena.

That feels like utter genius, especially seeing how, now he's finally got the world's attention, Tobias is returning to classic Ghost in so many ways. It's a 'welcome, here's what you've been missing' feeling. Inspirational.

A three song encore had everyone who could on their feet, with Mary On A Cross introduced as 'an old B-side my dad used to sing', Dance Macabre truly bewitching the audience.

Square Hammer finished the night on a true high, hammering home the fact that Ghost are one of the most fascinating bands to come through this city in ages.

Now that my phone has been released from its phone prison and I've written this review for you, reader, all that's left to do is to repent for engaging in such terrible blasphemy.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned! And sinned, and sinned, and sinned...