Dizzee Rascal Blows Manchester Academy Apart in a Bass-Fuelled Bonkers Night
MANCHESTER ACADEMY – 5th NOVEMBER 2026
WORDS / IMAGES BILLY SEAGRAVE
Dizzee Rascal didn’t just turn Bonfire night into a full-volume celebration; he blew the roof clean off Manchester Academy. Bringing his We Want Bass tour to town, the grime pioneer proved that more than two decades after rewriting the British musical blueprint, his ability to command a crowd remains entirely unmatched. From the second the first sub-bass wave hit the chest, standing still wasn’t an option. It was a visceral, sweat-soaked reminder of why the Bow-born MC still wears the crown.
The We Want Bass tour is less of a standard lap of honour and more of an explosive victory lap, deftly bridging the gap between Dizzee’s foundational, mercury-prize-winning weight and his modern, stadium-sized bangers. Entering a wall of cavernous low-end and rapid-fire lyricism, Dizzee set a relentless pace. His flow remains as sharp, chaotic, and fiercely precise as it was in 2003, slicing through the booming, bass-heavy production with effortless charisma.
The setlist was a calculated masterclass in crowd control. When the crunching, definitive riff of Fix Up, Look Sharp dropped, the Academy erupted into a kinetic sea of bouncing bodies, while the sheer, unadulterated maximalism of Bassline Junkie showed the enduring, multi-generational appeal of his catalogue. The crowd didn’t just watch the show; they became a core component of it, matching Dizzee’s frantic energy bar-for-bar, pit-for-pit.
While a potent hit of millennial nostalgia certainly hung in the air, this was far from a heritage act coasting on past glories. Dizzee commands the stage with the hunger of an artist who still has everything to prove, showing an innate, symbiotic understanding of exactly what a live audience craves.
Predictably, it was the inevitable, world-stopping arrival of Bonkers that pushed the night into pure euphoria. Decades after its release, the track remains an atomic cultural touchstone, reducing the venue to a blur of flying plastic cups and absolute, beautiful mayhem.
Manchester got precisely what it came for: colossal beats, definitive anthems, and the most exhilarating, ear-ringing way to kickstart a weekend early. Dizzee Rascal just surviving he’s still setting the standard.
SET LIST
1 Fox Trot Oscar
2 V.I.P.
3 I Luv U
4 Just a Rascal
5 Fix up look sharp
6 Heavy
7 Dirtee cash
8 Need to Know
9 What you need
10 Send it
11 R U Sleeping
12 Gather Around
13 F.O. Remix
14 All Night
15 Don’t gas me
16 Bass Line Junkie
17 C. U. Dance
18 Dance wiv me
19 Holiday
20 So Hot
21 You got the dirtee love
22 Bonkers
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