Live Review: Frank Carter + Rattlesnakes - Alexandra Palace, London 15/02/2020
The most momentous day of The Rattlesnakes career had been slowly creeping up on us; the day they play their largest headline show at the iconic Alexandra Palace!
We could feel the buzz of energy and excitement from the fans as soon as we entered the gigantic venue, an already healthy amount of people had gathered in front of the stage ready to either see the support bands or get a prime spot for the main man himself!
Canadian duo Cleopatrick were tonight’s openers, having seen them perform at their own headline show a few months prior, we knew they could put on a hell of a show. Ready to wake everyone up, they kicked their set off with latest single ‘Sanjake’ which instantly got the crowd jumping, they continued with the same energy for the rest of their set, ‘Bernard Trigger’ and fan favourite ‘Hometown’ were some personal highlights of ours. Finishing off their 8 song set with another popular one ‘Youth’, guitarist Luke was tearing around the stage, jumping up and down mid riff, what a start to the night!
Next up were internet thugs Ho99o9, whos insane stage antics are infamous across the globe, screaming out of the darkness they began their set with newer song ‘Shadowrun’, a very punk inspired banger with the Ho99o9 spice added to it! Following that up very strongly with favourite track ‘Street Power’, the room turned into chaos, bodies be flung left and right, pits opening up and frontman Eaddy jumping off anything he could find from speakers to drumkits. A calm before the storm came in the form of Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ which blasted out the speakers before Ho99o9 turned the venue on its head with the bass boosted ‘The Dope Dealerz’ which had everyone moving their feet!
After a quick reshuffle of the stage, the lights turned out and Frank Carter’s iconic voice spoke calmly over the speakers, tonight’s set opened with ‘Why a Butterfly can’t love a Spider’ which saw Frank standing high above the stage on a platform, looking out on the thousands of fans that had made the trip to London. The show went from 0 to 100 extremely quick as the next two songs on the setlist were ‘Tyrant Lizard King’ & The Rattlesnakes heaviest song ‘Juggernaut’ which of course saw Frank climb his way on top of the sea of people to finish the song as has become a tradition at Rattlesnake shows!
‘Love Games’ saw them crack out the mirrorball and Frank encouraged everyone in the pit to find a partner and slow dance to this one, ‘Spray Paint Love’ was a surprise one to hear this evening as it isn’t a song that is included in many of their sets anymore but it still resonated with the crowd the same as it did when it was a hot new single.
Mid-way through the set they turned it down a bit to give everyone a breather with ‘Neon Rust’ & ‘Angel Wings’ which was beautiful to watch on such a huge stage. Of course the room didn’t stay calm for too long as shortly after the fires were once again stoked with huge bangers ‘Kitty Sucker’ and ‘Hearthbreaker’ off their most recent album End Of Suffering, speaking of that right after Frank explained how excited he has been to play the next song from the day Dean and himself had written it, ‘End Of Suffering’ the title track floated around the venue, Franks coarse vocals drifting into everyone ears.
The Rattlesnakes finished off their set in style with one of their biggest songs off their latest record and 2 off their first record, ‘Crowbar’ had one of the loudest sing-a-longs of the night, the crowd was almost louder than the band! Sadly when these shows get so hectic people do get hurt every now and then; tomight was one of those, a man got crushed under multiple people in the middle of a pit but in this instance it was spotted very quickly by Frank himself and parted the crowd like the Red Sea to allow the medics to attend to him before continuing with the end of the show! Dedicating ‘Devil Inside Me’ to the injured fan was a nice touch from the guys, a swirl of bodies could be seen through the darkness as moshpits opened up throughout the room.
As any Rattlesnakes show does, tonight set closed with the ultimate sing-a-long, the infamous ‘I Hate You’ to which Frank usually starts with “Now I want you to tell me how you really feel about me!?”.
Tonight’s show was a pinnacle of Frank and The Rattlesnakes career so far, it is incredible to see how far they have come in only a few short years, from dingy backrooms to one of the largest venues in the country! Tonight’s performance really showed that the Rattlesnakes are here to stay and it won’t be long before they are topping major festival lineups in the near future.
Long Live The Rattlesnakes!!!
Words and Photography by Joe Dick