With just a few days until the Metal in the Midlands show, celebrating Black Sabbath and all things metal, we caught up with Lyle Bignon, Music Consultant, to talk about the show, and what it means for Birmingham and the next generation of artists.

How did the process of organising this event start? What was the driving force?

In 2024, I was asked by BBC Radio WM to produce a live 2 Tone music event to coincide with the broadcast of Steven Knight’s ‘This Town’ drama on BBC One. Shot in the West Midlands and featuring a ska, punk, new wave and early 80s soundtrack, the programme gave us the perfect moment to acknowledge Birmingham’s role in the 2 Tone movement and ska revival - spearheaded by Coventry musicians The Specials and The Selecter, but also reinforced by The Beat and propelled by music managers and promoters based in Birmingham.
Together with BBC Radio WM senior content producer Nina Lammiman, we booked The Beat featuring Ranking Junior, Pauline Black (The Selecter), Horace Panter (The Specials), and other acts and public ﬁgures for an event, BBC Radio WM celebrates 2 Tone in Birmingham, held at O2 Institute.

As part of that journey we produced hours of 2 Tone and Birmingham-related radio, TV, and online content for various BBC channels and platforms, as well as a four part radio documentary around 2 Tone for BBC Sounds. When Black Sabbath announced the Back to the Beginning ﬁnal concert, Nina got back in touch to canvas my thoughts about reprising the same model as a means of ensuring BBC Radio WM were part of the conversation around the Black Sabbath celebrations.

Our ambitions were to scale up from last year's 250 cap show, and really build on what we’d learnt from 2024. After developing various bids, conversations, models and plans, we developed a four band bill highlighting the future of Midlands heavy music, plus Sabbath and metal-related short ﬁlm screenings and a surprise or two in a 1200 capacity venue - Birmingham’s most important music venue where the Masters of Reality themselves played twice.
Now we’re days away from our show which falls in one of the busiest weeks in Birmingham. Hundreds of thousands of music fans and tourists will be in the city not for just Sabbath’s ﬁnal show or the many additional events and exhibitions, but Brummie legend Jeﬀ Lynne’s ﬁnal arena show the same night, Colmore Food Festivals sporting events and more.

There are some amazing organisations that are also involved in this event, such as B:Music and Flatpack Festival and!BBC Radio WM. How has their involvement helped to shape this event?

B Music are a charitable organisation that manages two of our most important cultural and music buildings in the city (Town Hall and Symphony Hall), and with the Sabbath heritage in Town Hall there really was only one building we wanted to hold this event in. Chris Proctor, Head of Programming there is an old colleague of mine (I worked for the organisation that ran Town Hall before it became B Music for some between 2007 and 2014, being part of the team that reopened Town Hall managing PR and leading on social media) and was super receptive to the idea and has been supportive from the get go.

We were also fortunate to have the support of Home of Metal early on, and then as they stepped away to deliver other events we brought in the amazing Flatpack Festival to curate our short ﬁlm screenings as part of the event - they are the best in their game and we’re delighted to have their expertise on board.

Town Hall Birmingham. It's a glorious piece of architecture, that has been open since 1834. To have an event as this in such a statement of a building, and include these great bands. What has that meant for the event? What impact does this venue have on it?

It’s great to be back working with this genuinely iconic and beautiful venue and team. The Grade I listed Town Hall, and its role as visual metaphor for Birmingham’s civic ambitions is very important to the city. To be holding BBC Radio WM celebrates Metal in the Midlands there is a great marriage of a committed local public service broadcaster and a vital cultural asset. All the acts are delighted to be playing such a landmark and it certainly brings a further sense of momentousness to the event.

With the Back to the Beginning show in a few days, it feels like a "carry the torch"/"passing the baton" moment. Is this something you've felt resonates with this event?

Yes - I think the types of bands involved in the Sabbath show demonstrate just how much inﬂuence and lineage through hard rock and heavy music the four lads from Aston are responsible for, and of course their impact doesnt stop at those bands. We felt it was important to give a handful of rising acts who exemplify ‘the Sabbath eﬀect’ the opportunity to play a bigger venue and audience that they might be used to, and connect the past, present and future.

Birmingham’s collective eﬀort around welcoming not just Black Sabbath and Jeﬀ Lynne, but the tens of thousands of fans visiting the city has been genuinely fantastic.

The diversity of events has been extraordinary, demonstrating that when we work together as one united community, so much can be achieved. Over the past few weeks, the social and economic power of music tourism has been clearly evident, and we’re delighted our event is playing a small part in the whole oﬀer.

Tickets for BBC Radio WM celebrates Metal in the Midlands at Town Hall Birmingham on Wednesday 2 July, priced £5, are available via B Music here.

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