Live Review: Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes - The Underworld, London 07/12/2022
Whenever Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes announce a show an instant buzz is created, so when they announced a 3 night residency at the iconic Camden venue The Underworld, its safe to say fans lost their minds and scrambled for tickets!
As mentioned by the band during the announcement, The Underworld was one of the first places they played in London as a band, so these 3 nights were like coming home for Christmas!
As the already dingy venue was cast into darkness the crowd let out a roar of excitement as The Rattlesnakes walked on stage followed shortly after by an already topless Frank Carter. Staring out into the crowd with a menacing glare, Frank bounced forward and back almost hyping himself up for what was about to be a chaotic evening before musically slapping everyone around the face with ‘Juggernaut’! It was not long before he ventured into the crowd and bounced around the moshpit with fans and ended the song by climbing atop the audience and bellowing the last few lines, shaking the entire room in the process.
Once making it back on stage the band crashed into a 4 song taste of their latest album ‘Sticky’ consisting of ‘Rat Race’, ‘Cobra Queen’, ‘Go Get a Tattoo’ and the title track ‘Sticky’ which got an enormous approval scream from the crowd.
A slightly calmer part of the set and probably a quick rest for Frank was the combination of ‘Why a Butterfly Can’t Love a Spider’ and ‘Angel Wings’, the latter sounding like it should be straight out of a film soundtrack. Alas this was the calm before the storm as it was pretty much a 100mph whirlwind from here on out, blasting through another 6 rowdy tunes including ‘Fangs’, ‘Trouble’, ‘My Town’ and ‘Devil Inside Me’; featuring Frank jumping off the sound desk at the back of the venue and crowd surfing himself back to the stage, laughing and screaming into the mic as he went!
Finishing the set with a heartfelt rendition of ‘End of Suffering’ brought a tear to our eye, not only because it is such a wonderfully emotive song but because it was the last song in the setlist; or so we thought as a few minutes after the band departed the stage they came bounding back on and played the real end of the set! A speedrun of their latest singles ‘The Drugs’ and ‘Parasite’ and every Rattlesnakes fan’s fav song ‘I Hate You’ which saw the audience pretty much sing the entire song as Frank stood their in awe; Frank thanked everyone for coming down and saw the show out with an extra chaotic version of ‘Crowbar’.
Tonight was a true musical spectacle and a 101 on ‘How to Put on a Rock Show’, Frank Carter and The Rattlesnakes seem to just get better and better every time we see them.
Words & Photos by Joe Dick
