The Rock Orchestra By Candlelight

The Rock Orchestra play Swansea Building Society Arena on Friday 5 February 2027, starting at 7:30pm. It's a candlelit show that puts classical musicians in charge of a rock and metal set, and they've built a fair bit of a name around it: they've played to over a million people worldwide and their first album hit number one on the rock and metal charts.

The whole thing is built on the contrast between classical music and metal. On stage, eleven classical musicians switch between melodic passages and walls of distortion, and the set is dressed with skeletal players in rhinestone masks, crooked lurching towers, floating lanterns and giant headbanging puppets. The act isn't affiliated with the artists and composers they cover, so it's a tribute rather than an official collaboration.

That set covers a lot of ground. The repertoire draws on Metallica, The Cranberries, Linkin Park, AC/DC, Evanescence, The Rolling Stones, System of a Down, Guns N' Roses, Korn, Led Zeppelin, Papa Roach, Aerosmith, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana and Hozier, among others. It's a broad mix, so you'll hear everything from the heavy riffs of Metallica and System of a Down to the melodies of The Cranberries and Hozier.

Tickets start from £36.40, and the show runs for an hour and a half. The age guidance is 14+.