The mighty Saxon continues their journey as one of the UK’s most well-known metal bands. Their output still comes thick and fast, but never compromising on quality. They know what their rabid fan base wants and deliver every time. They are still a formidable live act even though original member Paul Quinn decided to step down recently. Never fear, though; Diamond Head founder Brian Tatler stepped up and is a fantastic addition.

Eagles Over Hellfest is an epic documentation of Saxon’s blistering performance at Hellfest in France last year. The band smash out a set of classics and material from their latest LP Hell, Fire and Damnation. With a career as long as Saxon has enjoyed, picking a set of material must be a task. Everything you would expect to hear at a Saxon show is here: ‘Motorcycle Man’, ‘Power and the Glory’, ‘Heavy Metal Thunder’, ‘Dallas 1PM’, ‘The Eagle Has Landed’, ‘Strong Arm of the Law’ all sound incredible. The new tracks sound great too, we have the title track from Hell, Fire and Damnation and Madame Guillotine.

The band are on fire as always, but Biff Byford sounds better than ever; he’s constantly whipping up the crowd to a frenzy and has them in the palm of his hand. He’s singing better than people half his age.

A special shout out must go to drummer Nigel Glockler too. His playing is exemplary, a showcase in heavy metal drumming. Simply brilliant. Doug Scarratt plays his arse of too and even though I can’t see bass player Nibs Carter while listening to the album, I can picture him going crazy and constantly banging his head in my minds eye!

The album blasts through blistering versions of And the Bands Played On, Denim and Leather, Wheels of Steel, 747 (Strangers in the Night), Crusader, and finishes off with the legendary ‘Princess of the Night’. Crystal clear production from Biff makes you feel like you were there at Hellfest, singing along.

Saxon shows us yet again why they are a constant in the lives of metal fans all over the world and have influenced so many.  

Fill your heads with Heavy Metal Thunder!!

Buy Here

Author: Kenny Kendrick

BRAZILIAN PUNKS FANTAZMAZ ANNOUNCE DEBUT SELF-TITLED ALBUM DUE FOR RELEASE JULY 4TH VIA GHETTO BITCH RECORDS

PRE-ORDER THE ALBUM HERE:

BLAST OUT THE 30 SECOND NEW SINGLE ‘DEAD ON THE WAY HOME’ HERE:

With an incendiary live show that’s chaotic, loud and in-your-face, FANTAZMAZ—Brazil’s fiercest new punk rock export—are about to drop a nuclear bomb. On July 4th comes their debut self-titled album, marking the beginning of what’s set to be a killer year for the band.

Formed in 2019 by frontwoman Thami and guitarist Raf Oliver, Fantazmaz found their raw, unrelenting sound with the addition of bassist Chokito and former U.K. Subs drummer Jamie Oliver. Blending blistering punk energy with a fearless stage presence, they’ve quickly built a reputation for their no-holds-barred performances.

Now based in the U.K., Fantazmaz are gearing up for a wild summer, hitting Rebellion Festival and a string of European shows before heading back to their homeland of Brazil for a run of explosive gigs. With their debut album on the horizon and a relentless tour schedule ahead, Fantazmaz are poised to make their mark in a very big way.

“The album is angry and frustrated, pretty much because we don’t see a future,” explains Thami. “Chances are slim that we’re getting out of this global mess, and honestly, we don’t care much about explaining why. It’s right there for everyone to see. That’s the sentiment — listen to the album.

“We recorded the whole thing in two days at Monolith Studio. It was straightforward and honest — first day for drums, second day for guitars, bass, and vocals. The songs had been written for a while, and we just thought, why the hell not drop a full album? So, we went in and laid it down, raw and real. This is our first full album, and we’re bloody excited for it to finally come out.”

Fantazmaz launched the album with the track ‘Dead On The Way Home’. At only thirty seconds long, it’s the perfect introduction to the album’s unbridled rage and fury. The song was inspired by a news report from Brazil about a group of young people mistakenly shot dead on their way back from a night out, which is sadly not an isolated case. The anger and frustration led to the idea of a 30-second track repeating: “Got shot dead on their way home.”

Watch the video for ‘Dead On The Way Home’ HERE:

A short, sharp shock to the system, the album is crammed full of anger and energy, ranging from the 80s hardcore attack of ‘Scars Of Downtown’ (“about the loneliness of living in a metropolis like London, seen from a darker perspective,”) to the Dead Kennedys/Jello Biafra inspired ‘Corporate Behave’ (“dedicated to everyone sticking it to the capitalist rulebook,”). But Fantazmaz are no one-trick punk rock pony, the album is brimming with unique and fresh ideas. Album closer ‘Just Before Hell Comes Around’ bristles with dark hip hop beats, whilst ‘Are You Enjoying The Peaceful Skies?’ is fuelled by a decadent/bastard bossa nova, inspired by Chico Buarque’s epic song ‘Construção’. 

And best of all, this is just the beginning. 2025 is going to be a very busy year for Fantazmaz. Hold on tight.  

NEW ALBUM ‘CVRSES’ OUT NOW VIA DARK RIDERS/CARGO DISTRIBUTION

ORDER ‘CVRSES’ HERE:

Celebrating the release of their brand-new and critically acclaimed album ‘Cvrses’, out now via Dark Riders/Cargo Distribution, Sheffield riff masters Black Spiders are keeping the party going with new single ‘Up All Night’.

“It’s an ode to Renfield, Dracula’s batman and an allegory for the RnR lifestyle, where there’s only one version of 3 o’clock,” says guitarist and vocalist Pete Spiby as the band set course on another vital, stomping, harmony laden rock monster.

Recorded once again at Axis Studios in Doncaster with producer Matt Ellis behind the wheel, ‘Cvrses’ is, and of course all bands say this, very possibly their best album yet. It successfully distils everything that is thrilling and life-affirming about Black Spiders unique brand of thumping heaviness. Massive riffs, massive hooks, massive beats. It’s all massive.

Always a thrilling and cathartic rock n ’roll experience live on stage, Black Spiders have set up another UK tour to commence in June. Following their dates with Australian rockers Airbourne, the band will embark, buckets and spades in hand, on a seaside venues tour of England’s finest coastal venues.

“We always like to play somewhere different, and a lot of these smaller grassroots venues don’t get a look in on the touring circuit, so we thought why not?” says Pete. “It’s gonna be a week of beer vs ice cream…”

Catch Black Spiders live in 2025 at the following dates:

Support to Airbourne

31/05 Sterling – Albert Halls

01/06 Aberdeen – Beach Ballroom

02/06 Dundee – Fat Sams

June

15th – Weston Super Mare ELECTRIC BANANA

16th – Newquay DEAD FAMOUS

17th – Torquay THE ATTIC

18th – Bournemouth BEAR CAVE

19th – Southend CHINNERYS

20th – Margate OLBY’S

21st – Brighton DALTONS

28th – Fireside (Wildfire) Festival

www.blackspidersband.com

Anyone who knows the modern metal scene probably already recognises that Cleveland’s Midnight are the closest thing we have today to the classic punk metal blitzkrieg of Motorhead, Venom, Tank and Warfare. That main man Athenar should follow up the band’s incendiary 2024 ‘Hellish Expectations’ album with an album chock full of covers, and it does not feature a single track by any of those bands, though, had all of us at RPM towers scratching our heads. I mean, maybe we’d got Midnight’s influences all wrong after all. Then, I got to do some (grave) digging….

Originally conceived as ‘Throw Ups’, in homage to David Bowie’s very own album of covers ‘Pin Ups’, before then being retitled as ‘Steel Rust And Disgust’ to fit in with the band’s previously named six syllable back catalogue. This is a twelve-track album that brings together ten covers of songs written by bands who shared the same sights, sounds, and sewage as Athenar’s region of birth so hence why there are no British bands, adding in a couple of new Midnight cuts.

The first of these newbies is ‘Cleveland Metal’ a track that hammers home not only the record’s purpose but also proves why no one betters Midnight when it comes to writing three-minute blasts of pure punk metal…no one, and that’s a fucking fact.

The other new cut on offer is the album’s title track, ‘Steel Rust And Disgust’ and this beast is more of a pounding red hot slab of molten black rock ‘n’ roll. It’s classic Midnight, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

It’s when we get to the cover versions that things get really interesting though as whilst (like me) you may be aware of the likes of ‘Final Solution’ (originally by Rocket From The Tombs), ‘3rd Generation Nation’ (originally by The Dead Boys) and  ‘Frenzy’ (originally by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins) what you have yet to hear is the total pummelling these tunes get in the hands of Athenar, the later in particular being delivered with the type of frenzied reverence that Lemmy used to have for the old classics.

Of the less familiar tunes on offer, take your pick from ‘Child Eaters’ (originally by Rubber City Rebels), ‘Iron Beast’ (originally by Kratos) or ‘Rock N Roll Fever’ (originally by David Allan Coe) with which to start your journey into a whole new world of great rock music. Of course, they are all given the compulsory Midnight mauling, but nonetheless, they are all made to sound like songs Athenar himself could have written, and that for me is the art of doing a great cover version, making it your own. 

Which just leaves me with ‘I’m Insane’ (originally by Synastryche) where I must admit I really was hoping for a cover of the Ratt classic of the same name (if only they were from Cleveland), the VoiVod-esque ‘Carrions Keep’ (originally by False Hope) plus the short sharp shocks of ‘Black Leather Rock’ and ‘Agitated’ (originally by Electric Eels) to round things off in truly chaotic fashion.

At times, cover albums can be something of a hit or miss affair (I mean, just look at ‘Pin Ups’), but ‘Steel Rust And Disgust’ is 100% underground hit after muthafuckin’ hit. BUY IT!!!!!

Buy Here

Author: Johnny Hayward

https://www.facebook.com/midnightviolators

https://www.instagram.com/midnightviolators

Aerial Salad release new track ‘Wires’ ahead of their ‘Roi de l’herbe’ 5-track EP to be released June 27th via Venn Records on 12” vinyl and digital

Pre-order the vinyl HERE

UK tour confirmed for June!

Following on from last year’s acclaimed ‘R.O.I.’ album, Manchester’s favourite sons Aerial Salad are set to return to the fray with a brand new 5-track EP titled ‘Roi de l’herbe’, to be released June 27th on 12” vinyl and digital via Venn Records.

No longer in the same line of spirit destroying day job work, with some seriously exciting gigs on the horizon, Aerial Salad wanted to kick off the next era of the band with a short, fast and hard EP and have served up five absolute bangers that sit somewhere between 2020’s ‘Dirt Mall’ album and ‘R.O.I.’

Today, the band have previewed another cut from the forthcoming EP with new single ‘Wires’, which is, as singer and guitarist Jamie Munro explains, “an aggressive dismantling of modern work/life culture. As we head ever deeper into the digital abyss. I’d rather be on fire than have to spend my life looking at spreadsheets.

“’Wires’ is an outcry to anyone following something in life, he continues. “The most ‘punk’ movement of my youth was the grime movement. It was ALL DIY, and it absolutely dominated British culture – there’s a lot of similarities between grime / punk/ hardcore. From the fashion to the beats. So, we thought we’d do a 50-pound music video ‘on a nostalgic backdrop’. ‘Wires’ picks up from where ‘Telekon 5’ left – you can’t keep drifting from what you believe in, and you can’t be tied by matters beyond what’s really important in life.”

“The EP is like the teaser for what’s next,” summarises Jamie. “The overall hook for this EP is one of hope, that by sticking to what you believe in you can do anything.”

Catch Aerial Salad live at the following dates in 2025: 

16/05/25 PERIGUEUX – LE MOULIN DE ROUSSEAU
17/05/25 MONTAIGU – FURY DANCE
18/05/25 RENNES – TY ANNA

UK TOUR
21/06/25 NEWCASTLE – ZEROX
22/06/25 GLASGOW – THE GARAGE (ATTIC)
24/06/25 BIRMINGHAM – SUNFLOWER LOUNGE
25/06/25 LONDON – THE SOCIAL
27/06/25 MANCHESTER – SOUP
28/06/25 SHEFFIELD – CORPORATION

FESTIVALS

6/08/25-10/08/25 BOOMTOWN FESTIVAL

31/07/20-03/08/24 Y-NOT FESTIVAL

Aerial Salad are:

Jamie Munro – vocals/guitar

Mike ‘Wimbo’ Wimbleton – vocals/bass

Jake Marshall – drums

Find Aerial Salad online at:

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

Website:

Blacklist Union continue to create their own irresistible & shamanistic blend of Stone Temple PilotsGuns N’ RosesMalfunkshun, The Cult & Mother Love Bone. Following the 2024 singles ‘Horns & Halos’ & ‘Hey Mr Superstar’, new single ‘Mississippi Moonhound’, a swampy, swaggering anthem that captures the feeling of being haunted by your past while howling into the night for something more.. The debut single from the forthcoming LP ‘Slay the Dragon’, the band’s 6th studio album. Produced by Christopher Johnson (Evanescence, Hans Zimmer, Scott Weiland, Josh Todd, Bryan Adams, Phoebe Bridgers) Previous album ‘Letters from the Psych Ward’, racked up over two million streams.

Spotify –  HERE

Blacklist Union main man Tony West was raised in the Bronx on RamonesBad Brains, & the New York hardcore scene. ‘Go West young man’..Tony made his way to Los Angeles as a 19 years old, initially collaborating with guitarist Todd Youth (Murphy’s Law/Danzig) & Malfunkshun, who had been kept active by Andy Wood’s (Malfunkshun/Mother Love Bone singer) brother Kevin Wood. In 2006 Tony decided to pursue his own musical direction, and Blacklist Union were formed, the band’s debut album, ‘After the Mourning’ was released the same year. The band is currently managed by veteran industry pro Paul Crosby from the Grammy nominated, multi-platinum band Saliva. West also recorded with Saliva, and Jon E. Love (Love/Hate) back in 2014. 

Blacklist Union has earned a reputation for their explosive live shows. Last November, they stormed the West Coast with punk legends Dead Boys, followed by a December tour with former Saliva frontman Josey Scott, hitting Tennessee, Colorado, & California with their trademark intensity. West says, ‘Our music will transport you from the gritty streets of the Bronx to the wild energy of Los Angeles..’

Welcome to the Wild Wild West…

Blacklist Union LIVE –
Cruefest Hollywood @ the Whisky A Go-Go – 8901 W Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood Los Angeles – July 12th, 2025
Bar Sinister -1652 N Cherokee Ave, Los Angeles –  September 13th, 2025
Social Media/Online

https://www.instagram.com/blacklistunionofficial

https://www.facebook.com/BlacklistUnionRocks

https://blacklistunion.bandcamp.com

Seattle rockers The Drowns’ debut album ‘View From the Bottom’ gets the proper reissue it deeply deserves. In case you missed this first time round, Pirates Press have done the decent thing and given it a new lease of life and energy, and hopefully taken it further round this spinning rock than previously.

There is a gritty attitude in these songs that’s bursting with energy coming across like a youthful Handsome Dick meets Mike Ness on the vocals with a working class rock n roll feel bursting out of your speakers. The album sounds better than ever, thanks to the expert re-mastering job courtesy of legendary Seattle producer Jack Endino (Nirvana, Soundgarden, Murder City Devils…just to name a few)!

The Drowns have spent the last 7 years doing it their way, with a sound that’s part Rancid in places with the same kinda energy that they have with a dream in your heart and determination in your feet to carry you around the globe and back hoping that something resonates with an audience and within these tracks there is easily enough great songs bursting with passion and honesty Like ‘Time Slips’ which has that x factor in its melody that collides with those rough distorted guitars and they all marry with a gang vocal chorus that is made to endure.

This new version features all new art, with a minimalist, black on black spot-matte jacket with a metallic red foil-stamped pitchfork paying homage to the original album cover photo, this looks a little classier if I’m honest. Following the original album closer “Darkness” is an encore of a bonus track: a cover of ‘Satyagraha’ by 7Seconds. always good to mix up these re-releases and a new lick of paint and bonus tracks, it’s for everyone, old and new. Oh, and I hope Bobby’s doing ok after going back on the gear. I got on board with their excellent ‘Lunatics’, so this is great to see with a new makeover for 2025. Get on punk rockers, you won’t regret it.

View From the Bottom by The Drowns is available for pre-order via the Pirates Press Records

Author: Dom Daley

Right here’s the deal, Kirk Brandon has revisited Spear Of Destiny albums before with very favourable results, so why not continue that trend with a couple more and retitle them ‘Janus’ and re-record them with choice B Sides and left off the originals. What 2025 delivers is a modern sounding bells and whistles full bodied audio assault on plenty of Staple Spear Of Destiny classics and if you’d never heard of the band and their music with ‘Janus’ as your only reference you’d be fuckin delighted with a sonic modern sounding all killer no filler double album. To be fair, the lineup helps when they’re this bloody good, as well as adding their feel and take on these tracks.

There you go in a nutshell, if you are new to Brandon and his music, then work your way backwards with this bastard. Cast your mind back to the late 80s and ‘Outland’ in 87 followed by ‘The Price You Pay’ in 88 throw the running list in the air and start again in 2025, sure the songs have stood the test of time well and aged like affine wine as has Brandons vocals to be fair. The Distinctive style is intact, but a mature well well-rounded delivery is harnessed, and the sound of the band and production is excellent, and whilst a project of this nature could potentially fall flat, this most certainly doesn’t.

Two years in the making Brandon has alluded to the reasons why and why now. He went on to explain now was the time to deliver what he’d originally imagined the records to sound like and hes justifiably proud of how the project has turned out and so he sould be.

Not being a stranger to revisiting old music, this one has some proper bangers given a facelift and the sound is full blooded and much richer, take ‘Soldier Soldier’ for example, which has had the missing last verse put back in but to be fair hearing these songs like this for the first time in a long time has been a real pleasure.

Also, the CD version includes 6 bonus tracks. So raise a glass to Kirk and a special mention for Steve Allen Jones, Phil Martini, Craig Adams and Adrian Portas, and Clive Osborne deserve credit for their part in bringing these songs back to life. Quite simply, buy it!

A 28 date UK tour will commence on Wednesday 28th April 2025 and conclude on Sunday 1st June 2025 to support the release, including the now infamous Westworld Weekend in Wolverhampton UK, Kirk Brandon’s fan club weekender now in it’s 21st year!

Buy Here

Author: Dom Daley

“TOTAL FILTH!!!!!”

That’s what the spoken introduction to ‘Gash Wagon’, which lacerates your speaker cones at the midway point of ‘Sunshine, Lollipops, & Rainbows’, the latest release from rock legends, The Dwarve,s is…. total and utter filth.

There are no spoilers here at RPM, but hearing this dialogue for the first time was enough to have our head honcho, Dom Dale,y snotting his breakfast porridge out of his nose, and if it had been 1977, I dare say he would have smashed up his stereo in outrage too.

This is the motherfuckin’ Dwarves, though, brothers and sisters and a fourteen-track slice of their kind of sleazy life is just what Record Store Day 2025 needs if you ask me (the price of the bloody thing here in the UK aside that is). Yup, as a special treat for all of us vinyl nerds, Blag Dahlia and co have decided to finally unleash these previously never-before-released tracks, recorded live in the studio in Seattle, Summer 1989. This is, by the band’s own admission, the missing link between the Dwarves classic 1990 Sub Pop release ‘Blood, Guts & Pussy’ and 1988’s ‘Toolin’ For a Warm Teabag’ which had been released on Nasty Gash Records.

Think of ‘Sunshine, Lollipops, & Rainbows’ then as a seedy glimpse behind the band’s heavily soiled cross boners backdrop curtain, as eleven of the original ‘Blood, Guts & Pussy’ tracks get a down and dirty, live in the studio, mauling. Highlights for me still include ‘Fuck You Up And Get High’, ‘Astro Boy’ (the tragic backstory behind which guitarist HeWhoCannotBeNamed once shared with me and brought a whole new meaning to the song) as well as their wonderful reinterpretation of ‘Surfin’ Bird’, here reworked/renamed/repurposed within the truly awesome ‘Motherfucker’.

Just like their debut Sub Pop album there’s no fucking around here – it’s fourteen songs in the same number of minutes and only ‘Back Seat of My Car’ and ‘Drug Store’ are missing from that album’s thirteen tracks. However, in their place we get ‘Eat You To Survive’, ‘She’s Dead’ and ‘Fuckhead/Shout’, the latter being similar to ‘Motherfucker’ albeit here the song morphs into The Isley Brothers classic before seemingly the tape runs out and we can all catch our breath once again.

Sex, drugs and rock n roll is what The Dwarves were all about back in 1989, and probably still are to this very day. They are the band the PMRC (remember those fuckers?) would have loved to have cancelled back then but they effectively did that to themselves in 1993 when choosing to fake the death of HeWhoCannotBeNamed ahead of the release of their ‘Sugarfix’ record and subsequently imploded after Sub Pop didn’t see the funny side of it and promptly dropped the band.

‘Sunshine, Lollipops & Rainbows’ is the missing gem from the dawn of that Sub Pop era, and it finally sees the light of day on April 12th 2025 as part of Record Store Day. It’s released as a full colour picture disc, in a full colour gatefold sleeve, complete with a full colour inner bag containing dozens of photographs from the infamous ‘Blood, Guts & Pussy’ cover shoot and live photographs of the band from Seattle around 1989/90.

Just make sure to take your own brown paper bag to the record store in which to carry the total filth back home in.

Buy Here

Author: Johnny Hayward

For more information on ‘Sunshine, Lollipops & Rainbows’ or tour dates, visit https://thedwarves.com  

or follow them on social media at;

https://www.facebook.com/TheDwarves#

https://www.instagram.com/thedwarves#

https://twitter.com/@thedwarvesband

In the quarter of a century that the Teenage Cancer Trust has been putting on concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, over 300 bands have played over 132 shows, helping raise over £ 34 million for the charity. Cancer is something that unfortunately will pretty much affect all our lives in some way during our time on this planet and even though tonight I’m ultimately here to see Frank Carter fronting the Sex Pistols it’s why I also don’t mind breaking my ceiling limit for a gig ticket to in turn maybe help someone through their battle with this horrible group of diseases.

Anyway, once through the doors tonight my immediate take on the event and venue is they are both very impressive indeed, everyone from the door staff to the people collecting money for the charity are all happy to have a spot of playful banter and I’m in and out of the merch section (t-shirts ranging between £20-£30) with a handful of booty in double quick time. Given that this event sold out pretty much on the day the tickets were released, we managed to pick up a couple last minute, in the second-tier boxes, and I must say that the service afforded at this level is not too dissimilar to that at a Riu hotel, exceptional.

Everything runs like clockwork at these events too, and as such, bang on 7:30 after a brief introduction from a duo of Absolute Radio DJs I get to sample The Molotovs for the very first time. Not to be confused with the band of the same name singed to Fierce Panda back in the noughties, this lot are formed around the brother/sister duo of Mathew on guitar and vocals and Issey Carts on bass and specialise in the type of spikey late ‘70s mod revival choons that made The Jam household names. By the amount of Molotovs shirts visible here tonight they’ve certainly made a big impression in a relatively short space of time, and with debut single ‘More More More’ only hitting the shelves this week, it’s extraordinary to see some fans already mouthing every word to the likes of  ‘Johnny Don’t Be Scared’ (I’m not, ouch) and ‘Today’s Gonna Be Our Day’ which bookend their short, sharp set. There’s even time to give Bowie’s ‘Suffragette City’ a mod makeover, much to my travelling companion’s chagrin (Mrs H is something of a Bowie purist), but it fits right in with the band’s own material, so kudos to them for making the song their own. Expect to see The Molotovs everywhere during the rest of 2025.

“I didn’t think they’d put that up,” laughs Kid Kapichi frontman Jack Wilson as he seems genuinely surprised that the band’s ‘kissing’ Putin/Trump backdrop is glaring out from the huge video screen hung up directly in front of the Albert Hall’s monumental grand organ. The Hastings four piece are certainly not afraid to wear their politics on their sleeves, and out on the road promoting their eclectic third album ‘There Goes The Neighbourhood’ they are right at the forefront of a movement of young UK bands eager to speak their minds when it comes to subjects like Brexit, racism and austerity. The guys waste no time kicking up a racket either, ploughing straight into the likes of ‘Artillery’, ‘Can EU Hear Me’ and ‘Rob The Supermarket’, along with the tune that first introduced me to the band, ‘New England’. Sadly, there’s no Bob Vylan on hand to guest on the mid-section tonight, but Dumb Bhoys Fishing Club add their own twist to proceedings in fine fashion. Kid Kapichi are one of those great British bands that straddle genres and defy being labelled with a genre, one minute they are heavy as Black Sabbath, the next the chorus has you singing your head off like you are watching Blur and it’s all topped off with a frontman who comes from the Terry Hall school of cool too. I’ve waited a long time to see Kid Kapichi live and the lads certainly did not disappoint. I just need to witness them in a headline capacity now.

Talking of which, before we get to our headliners tonight there’s a reminder of the great work that the Teenage Cancer Trust does for young people around the UK via a short film looking at their fantastic work, with some of the patients featured in the film then joining the Absolute Radio DJs on stage for a gigantic selfie with the Albert Hall audience this simply reinforces why, outside of the music itself, many are here tonight, to make this event a total sell out.

A friend of mine commented recently that there could possibly be more people in the Albert Hall when you go to see Sex Pistols with Frank Carter than saw the Sex Pistols back in the whole of 1976/77, and you know what, he’s probably not far off the mark. So for all the “there’s no Pistols without Johnny,” and “I saw them back in ’77” (yeah right) rhetoric that seems to make social media such a toxic and divisive place these days, when you look at the demographic of tonight’s crowd, for every one of those keyboard warriors there’s an army of younger people who weren’t just not born when ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’ was released, but also not born when ‘Orchestra Of Wolves’ was released, just waiting to snap up a ticket for tonight’s headliners in their place.  The mix of young and old is something that is certainly not lost on Frank Carter as he enters the mosh pit for the first time tonight, the frontman urging the crowd to create the largest circle pit the Albert Hall has ever seen (I’d guess its possibly the first its ever seen too) during a mid-set ‘Silly Thing’, whilst making sure the audience leave just enough room for his “ego” (his words, not mine) at the very eye of the storm.   

Look, if I’m totally honest I miss John Lydon fronting the Pistols just as much as the next person, but for the band to function here in 2025 Paul Cook, Steve Jones and Glen Matlock needed a shot of something different to make them smile and enjoy their Pistols legacy once more, and in Frank Carter they have found their man. From opener ‘Holidays In The Sun’ through to the euphoric show closing ‘Anarchy In The UK’, the bloke doesn’t stand still for a second, he might be dressed like he’s up on a charge and just off to court, but the ear to ear grin on his face when he spits out the lyrics to the likes of deeper ‘Bollocks’ cuts like ‘Seventeen’ and ‘New York’ along with single B-sides ‘Satellite’ and ‘No Fun’ speaks volumes about his love of the band he’s honoured to now be a part of.

‘Pretty Vacant’ sees Carter take his first of many trips into the audience (like he’s always done in all the bands he’s fronted) whilst his crowd walking/standing technique during a ferocious ‘Bodies’ (“this is my favourite song” he declares) is up there with an in his prime Iggy Pop, make no mistake. Which rather conveniently brings me back to ‘No Fun’ and the band introductions segment where each member of the band got their chance to shine, and Steve Jones chooses to play out a series of feedback Morse code notes, laughing his head off in the process. That’s the spirit within the Sex Pistols right now, and it’s rather wonderful to witness it. Then, via a tale of admiration for the guitarist, Carter coaxes Jonesy into admitting that this is his first time inside the Albert Hall, and he’s headlining the place in front of over 5,000 people. Who said you can’t still be winning at things in life even when you are almost seventy years of age, eh?

If I could have had a version of ‘Submission’ added to the set list too it would have rounded off a perfect night, and whereas I was perhaps looking at this gig as drawing a line under all matters Sex Pistols it’s got me looking at some of their other shows now too.

All in all then tonight was another fantastic success for everyone involved, it even made the nightmare detour laden road trip back to Wales seem worthwhile. Motorways? Who needs them eh?  God save the Sex Pistols and God save the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Author: Johnny Hayward