Just after playing a small home-town gig, Jordan Cardy and his band mates, aka the recently infamous Rat Boy, traveled into the capital to play at one of their biggest UK shows yet. Heaven, also commonly known for being a nightclub, was just the type of venue you’d expect to see the more rebellious and raucous bands play, whom of which would only dare to play somewhere a little different and avoid the mainstream wave. It offered an air of underground privacy and old-school venue vibes which perfectly induced the manic hyperactive tendencies of the crowd.
The set opened up with an upheaval of flashing blue lights and police sirens, which instantly set the crowd into a frenzy of anticipation and defiance against authority. That was until Rat Boy himself hit the stage with their newly released track ‘Move’, this of which was a seamless mosh pit inducing opener creating an amped up crowd of whom would be pretty much on high adrenaline for the rest of the night. ‘Left 4 Dead’ and ‘Sign on’ were more predominantly the tracks that caused the utmost uproar, generating determination and competition amongst the crowds to gain a closer proximity from the stage, along with a hoard of mosh-pits being evident throughout.
During his lesser known songs including ‘Sportswear’ there was a certain feel of segregation and slight composure within the crowd. This can only be due to the newer fans seeming to calm down and take a short step back from their enthusiastic and rowdy behaviour to make way for the older followers to have their turn to increase their momentum and chanting, this is until ‘WASTEMAN’ followed which once again, heightened the un-controlled atmosphere.
The upper most memorable moment of the night was that of an encore of RAT Boys seemly most popular track ‘FAKE ID’, this resulted in a stage invasion, which, to no surprise was provoked by Cardy himself with a subtle invitation along the lines of ‘There are some stairs either side of the stage you know’ at this moment the toughened security in their high-vis jackets became the feebler minority with an instant on-slaughter of fans pouring over the now almost futile barricade. With stage invasion becoming ever so less known in modern gigs due to the height of health and safety, it was somewhat of a breath of fresh air to know that the rebellious ‘breaking of rules’ enforced by artists is still lingering and how it seemed Rat Boy shifted from a, single personage to one of who was not isolated form those who appear to worship his material, his fans.
However with this entire forceful and high energy unruly atmosphere created by the gig-goers, it was almost certain that problems would unfold. With the rough majority of the crowds being ‘middle class indie’s’ It was expected prior to Rat-boys stage appearance, a handful would be seen lingering outside smoking accompanied by cheap wine and various alcoholic beverage to hand, would indeed fuel a rowdy nature. This evoked the normally more encouraging of this behavior Cardy to tweet out a plead of ‘AS LAME AS THIS SOUNDS CAN EVERYONE CALM DOWN THE VENUE PROMOTER AND POLICE ARE THREATENING 2 PULL THE SHOW’ – Showing how despite his school boy clown persona, he has indeed got a show to run and a reputation with promoters to keep up.
Without even releasing a debut album yet, it is certain that Rat Boy will maintain attracting masses of fans and followers to his already slight rambunctious gigs.
Words By Georgina Truss
See our pictures of Ray Boy’s raucous Heaven gig here.