Live Review: Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes - Manchester Academy, 09/02/2024
Always keeping busy album by album, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes have once again embarked on a UK tour in promotion for their most recent release, Dark Rainbow. A different tone compared to the band’s previous records, there is an air of curiosity of how this will translate in a live setting. Be curious no more as once again, Carter and his bandmates have found themselves in Manchester’s famous Academy building to bring the pain, the joy, and the punk rock power that made them a known name in the genre.
Warming the crowd up first are HotWax: an unstoppable, unbelievable punk trio who seem like naturals within the scene. Forming at the start of the decade, they have already found their feet with the most fitting sound and a heartwarming stage presence. An audience can always tell when their entertainers are fully giving their hearts and souls in their art, and it was felt as the lights strobed, the music filled the venue from floor to ceiling, and the chemistry between vocalist Tallulah Sim-Savage and bassist Lola Sam bubbled over the brim. This was a band who found what they were born to do, and for the short time they have been making music and performing, they know how to do it. They do it so well.
Following on from a static shock opener is the second support of the night, Liverpool’s leading alternative act The Mysterines. A group who are no strangers to live performance, they got the crowd moving and grooving to their alternative-indie tunes. Playing singles such as ‘Hung Up’, ‘Dangerous’, and their latest serving in ‘Begin Again’, they displayed their entire career in this set and with the fans who were in attendance that night, it was known they were playing to a warm and welcoming gathering. They first came together in 2015, a near decade ago, and it seems that they have taken this time to perfect their craft and learn how to use it to gain fans and guarantee repeat attendees for their own headline shows. The Mysterines were the most fitting act to welcome the main act this night and it showed on every smiling face singing along to the words.
Now for the entrance of the main men of the night, as The Rattlesnakes made their entrance and kicked off the night with new track ‘Can I Take You Home’. Taking the microphone in a smartly-worn suit with his hair pushed back, it looked like frontman Carter was ready to take the night as smoothly and seriously as he possibly can. The look is a change to the usual Hawaiian shirt and trousers that he was donning years prior, and it’s welcome as the appearance suits the new sound The Rattlesnakes have adopted for the latest record.
As can happen with fans of punk music, a change may not always be welcome, especially when not accompanied with classics when played live. Carter and co are always thinking ahead: following a string of new tracks, including the catchy dance-worthy single ‘Brambles’, Carter brought back End of Suffering mosh-pit anthem ‘Kitty Sucker’. A hit that always goes down a treat at the Rattlesnakes’ live shows, the crowd did not disappoint once again as the pit opened and everyone - or near everyone - jumped and ran, bumped and fell to the rhythm of the song.
If there is one guarantee for a Rattlesnakes gig, it’s to expect a mosh-pit that will be felt in the morning and remembered for the rest of time.
Carter himself has gained a sizeable and respectable fan following, a portion coming from his early days with his former band Gallows. This following is who to thank for these brand new songs, coming from an album released only a fortnight ago, being sung back with such dedication and admiration. Something that is visible on Carter’s face is a highly appreciated act. Something small which means the world to Carter and his fellow musicians on-stage, seeing and hearing the words being repeated without any quiet or pauses. The two softer tracks where this was most evident is new song ‘Sun Bright Golden Happening’ and Modern Ruin track ‘Thunder’; the latter of which is rarely performed live. As a track about witnessing the world turning on each other and seeing atrocities committed from country to country, it hits harder now than ever before. Carter is a man who feels the emotions of the world around him, and adding a track such as ‘Thunder’ to the setlist was not a decision made easily. This was conscious and thought out, and with the common practice of promoting peace, love and acceptance - as he does every night with dedicating ‘Wild Flowers’ to women and non-binary people and not allowing men in the mosh-pit for this track - it was touching in the most humane sense to hear this song being played in such a diverse crowd.
As anyone who knows the Rattlesnakes knows, the usual closer to the night was ‘I Hate You’, an ode to that one despised person in everyone’s lives. In recent times however, Carter has been shaking this tradition up and this rainy night in Manchester was no different. Performing the cathartic anthem penultimately, he and the Rattlesnakes closed the night with one last hurrah in the form of Dark Rainbow’s leading single, ‘Man of The Hour’. The lights beamed, the crowd danced and sang and cheered, and it was a successful run of a gig completed once again by the UK’s latest revamped punk act.
With the changes to the Rattlesnakes’ sound in the last year, along with the personal changes within Carter’s life which he has said led him to feeling less stressed out about life and more happy than angry about what he’s been through, there were concerns that the edges were smoothed. The corners were rounded out. Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes cannot be a punk act with this refinement. What these concerns don’t take into account is that being punk isn’t about a sound or a style; it’s about how one lives and works and learns. The Rattlesnakes will always be punk, through their words and their live shows and through Carter’s own leadership in the British punk scene.
There is light at the end of the rainbow, and it shone bright upon The Rattlesnakes.
Words by Jo Cosgrove
Photography by Maryleen Guevara
