I was recently contacted by Kim at Resorts World Birmingham and I was offered the chance to see Stereophonics at the Genting Arena, Birmingham. Being a big fan of the Stereophonics and having seen them twice back in 2008, I couldn’t turn down the chance to see them again.

I offered my spare ticket to a friend and we went along to the Customer Information desk at Resorts World to pick them up. If you didn’t already know, Resorts World opened at the end of 2015 and is situated next to the NEC and the Genting Arena in Birmingham. It houses 50 outlet shopping stores including H&M, The North Face and Joy, 18 bars and restaurants, an 11 screen cinema, a hotel and a casino. It’s the perfect place to go before a concert or show and a lot of people chose to go there for their Christmas parties.

We made our way into the arena, got a drink from the bar and found our seats which were on the right hand side of the stage and were fairly close to the front. We walked in half way through the support act, Kid Wave who really weren’t to my taste; I was pleased when their set finished. We didn’t have to wait too long for the stage to be set up for the Stereophonics and the atmosphere was fantastic when they came onto the stage behind a white curtain and opened the set with ‘C’est La Vie’ from their new album, ‘Keep The Village Alive’. The rest of the set was as follows:

1. C’est La Vie
2. I Wanna Get Lost With You
3. Superman
4. Vegas Two Times
5. A Thousand Trees
6. More Life In A Tramp’s Vest
7. Pick A Part That’s New
8. Have A Nice Day
9. Indian Summer
10. Graffiti On The Train
11. Roll The Dice
12. Mr Writer
13. Just Looking
14. White Lies
15. Song For The Summer
16. Handbags and the Gladrags
17. Violins and Tambourines
18. Mr and Mrs Smith
19. Traffic
20. Sunny
21. Local Boy In The Photograph
    —-ENCORE—
22. The Bartender and The Thief
23. I Wouldn’t Believe Your Radio
24. Maybe Tomorrow
25. Dakota

Unfortunately, due to the train times (no trains leave Birmingham New Street after midnight!), we had to leave after they played Mr and Mrs Smith. I would have loved to have stayed and seen the rest of the set but a taxi home would have cost me a small fortune. My favourite songs of the night were ‘Superman’, ‘I Wanna Get Lost With You’ and ‘More Life In A Tramp’s Vest’.

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Great night seeing @Stereophonics at Genting Arena with @loveiconfantasyego. #birmingham #stereophonics #justlooking #kellyjones #gentingarena #NEC

A post shared by Hayley (@xhjw) on Dec 11, 2015 at 2:45pm PST

I’m looking forward to visiting Resorts World Birmingham again – I’m already going to see Manic Street Preachers at the Genting Arena in May, so I will definitely be going to have something to eat at one of the many restaurants first and perhaps do bit of shopping too. I’ve never been to a casino before, so I’d also like to pay the Genting Casino a visit too – I think it would make a great night out!

Tags : Birmingham, Genting Arena, live music, NEC, Resorts World Birmingham, Stereophonics