Every generation of British teenage music fans needs an idol, a pioneer and summary for that movement. Somebody to march into the unknown, flag in hand, glasses reflecting the distant sunset – it’s almost got the perfect picture to match the absolute individualism and rebellion personified within pioneering music. It seems the scrappy hair, baggy baseball jersey and frayed bleached jeans of Jordan ‘Rat Boy’ Cardy is to provide that nowadays for the youth of 2016. No matter whether you looked up to Morrissey back in the 80s, Cocker in the 90s, Turner in 00s, or even Jamie T for that matter, you have always had a point of reference. Someone to dig up the dirt from the sticky carpet at the local pub, right through to helping you through all your relationship insecurities with that lovely other half that you met outside WH Smiths on a rainy Sunday afternoon when out with your friends. Since being fired from Chelmsford’s Wetherspoons, Rat Boy seems as if he is on a real mission to twist this generation’s perception of music with his quick fired lyricism that spits and slurs slang and obsoletes.
The crowd at Concorde 2 tonight lingers around the mid-to-late teens sort of bracket. At 23, I feel as if I am the guardian to some lucky fan who has broken away from the shackles of GCSE revision to get down to Concorde 2 on a a baking hot Saturday night. A flurry IDs shuffle around friends who are hell-bent on getting an overpriced pint of Euro-piss from the bar. It sets the tone though as Skaters take to the stage. There’s a youthful optimism that swims around the band; they personify the DIY ethos of punk rock’n’roll, breaking away from the mundane and finding bliss in the cathartic rebellion. Made up partly of Hull’s mid-00s indie showcase, The Paddingtons, the quartet threw into the mix of their furious paced set a flickering of new material – ‘Head On to Nowhere’ and ‘Mental Case’ being two of these. Their songs leave sparsity and excess to wrestle with one another, choruses are monumental and to be honest, it becomes very apparent as to why they possess all the credentials to be the new indie band that are set to pave the way for future artists. They hold their ground between the anthems and their debut LP. Manhattan, released in 2014, is further testament to this.
As Rat Boy takes to the stage later on, his cheeky presence is something that, when seen in interviews can fall heavily upon a double-edged sword. Not sure whether to take it with sincerity or as tongue in cheek, it can occasionally come across a little too forced, a little too marketed. Nevertheless, as it comes across tonight, it falls gloriously into the charming factor. Alluring fans squeal with excitement as Rat Boy and his band hit into their single ‘Move’, mosh-pits open up from this point and the glassy-eyed teenagers look set to carry it out for the duration. Sweat is leaking off the ceiling by this point, an accumulation of the heat outside and the intense oven ticking away inside Concorde 2.
The social commentary slur of Rat Boy is something so obviously taken from Jamie T, the difference being in the charisma behind the man. Whereas Jamie T seems to have flickered in and out of the musical spotlight since 2007, his persona has always remained shy, reserved and slightly held back, particularly live. Jamie T opts for the lethargic glare, the eyes-shut moments are as strong as the straight up punk. In contrast, Rat Boy finds he cuts his teeth best on the loud, slightly obnoxious side and this seems to work for his modern day fans. His lyrical slurs are often a little too predictable and cheap: “Eating Maccy Ds but we never are happy / Keep it underground like wacky, Gaddaffi”. Does this matter though? Not tonight it appears. The beauty of Rat Boy’s show tonight isn’t necessarily in his songwriting ability or his knack of writing a witty line, it’s more in the unison he has brought together through the crowd, what it means to them. What it means to be a young teenager, desperate for some sort of weekend release.
Rat Boy carries with himself a marketable image, he presents the idea of the one man against the world. Warped around his desperately witty lyrics of ‘Wasteman’, ‘Fake ID’ and ‘Sign On’, it’s hard to work out whether these are true, tried and tested worlds or what he imagines the underside of society to look a little more like having once read about it. The pioneering element too is slightly jaded, slightly predictable but as the crowd shakes down at the front, hell bent on giving Cardy the reception to the final show on the tour that he deserves, does this matter anymore? Arguably, Rat Boy’s existence may flicker, he may hang about for the long haul, nobody really knows as of yet. What he presents isn’t new, it is this generation’s ‘version of’ and that’s about it. He can show them a good time, though, is that all anybody really needs anyway? On this Saturday night, apparently so.
Tom Churchill
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