{"id":26328,"date":"2025-03-27T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=26328"},"modified":"2025-03-27T08:58:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T08:58:37","slug":"sex-pistols-with-frank-carter-kid-kapichi-the-molotovs-london-royal-albert-hall-24th-march-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=26328","title":{"rendered":"Sex Pistols with Frank Carter\/Kid Kapichi\/The Molotovs \u2013 London, Royal Albert Hall \u2013 24th March 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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 \u00a3 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\u2019m ultimately here to see Frank Carter fronting the Sex Pistols it\u2019s why I also don\u2019t mind breaking my ceiling limit for a gig ticket to in turn maybe help someone through their battle with this horrible group of diseases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019m in and out of the merch section (t-shirts ranging between \u00a320-\u00a330) 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201870s mod revival choons that made The Jam household names. By the amount of Molotovs shirts visible here tonight they\u2019ve certainly made a big impression in a relatively short space of time, and with debut single \u2018More More More\u2019 only hitting the shelves this week, it\u2019s extraordinary to see some fans already mouthing every word to the likes of  \u2018Johnny Don\u2019t Be Scared\u2019 (I\u2019m not, ouch) and \u2018Today\u2019s Gonna Be Our Day\u2019 which bookend their short, sharp set. There\u2019s even time to give Bowie\u2019s \u2018Suffragette City\u2019 a mod makeover, much to my travelling companion\u2019s chagrin (Mrs H is something of a Bowie purist), but it fits right in with the band\u2019s own material, so kudos to them for making the song their own. Expect to see The Molotovs everywhere during the rest of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI didn\u2019t think they\u2019d put that up,\u201d laughs Kid Kapichi frontman Jack Wilson as he seems genuinely surprised that the band\u2019s \u2018kissing\u2019 Putin\/Trump backdrop is glaring out from the huge video screen hung up directly in front of the Albert Hall\u2019s 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 \u2018There Goes The Neighbourhood\u2019 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 \u2018Artillery\u2019, \u2018Can EU Hear Me\u2019 and \u2018Rob The Supermarket\u2019, along with the tune that first introduced me to the band, \u2018New England\u2019. Sadly, there\u2019s 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\u2019s all topped off with a frontman who comes from the Terry Hall school of cool too. I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talking of which, before we get to our headliners tonight there\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s probably not far off the mark. So for all the \u201cthere\u2019s no Pistols without Johnny,\u201d and \u201cI saw them back in \u201977\u201d (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\u2019s crowd, for every one of those keyboard warriors there\u2019s an army of younger people who weren\u2019t just not born when \u2018Never Mind The Bollocks\u2019 was released, but also not born when \u2018Orchestra Of Wolves\u2019 was released, just waiting to snap up a ticket for tonight\u2019s 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\u2019d guess its possibly the first its ever seen too) during a mid-set \u2018Silly Thing\u2019, whilst making sure the audience leave just enough room for his \u201cego\u201d (his words, not mine) at the very eye of the storm.   <\/p>\n\n\n

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Look, if I\u2019m 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 \u2018Holidays In The Sun\u2019 through to the euphoric show closing \u2018Anarchy In The UK\u2019, the bloke doesn\u2019t stand still for a second, he might be dressed like he\u2019s 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 \u2018Bollocks\u2019 cuts like \u2018Seventeen\u2019 and \u2018New York\u2019 along with single B-sides \u2018Satellite\u2019 and \u2018No Fun\u2019 speaks volumes about his love of the band he\u2019s honoured to now be a part of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Pretty Vacant\u2019 sees Carter take his first of many trips into the audience (like he\u2019s always done in all the bands he\u2019s fronted) whilst his crowd walking\/standing technique during a ferocious \u2018Bodies\u2019 (\u201cthis is my favourite song\u201d he declares) is up there with an in his prime Iggy Pop, make no mistake. Which rather conveniently brings me back to \u2018No Fun\u2019 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\u2019s the spirit within the Sex Pistols right now, and it\u2019s 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\u2019s headlining the place in front of over 5,000 people. Who said you can\u2019t still be winning at things in life even when you are almost seventy years of age, eh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I could have had a version of \u2018Submission\u2019 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\u2019s got me looking at some of their other shows now too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author: Johnny Hayward<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u00a3 34 million for the charity. Cancer is something that unfortunately will pretty much affect all our lives in some way during our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26334,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1787,1710,1681,1680,8777,1833],"class_list":["post-26328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-review","tag-its-a-revolution","tag-rpm-online","tag-rpmnews1","tag-rpmonline","tag-sex-pistols-with-frank-carter-kid-kapichi-the-molotovs-london","tag-tourlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26328"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26336,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26328\/revisions\/26336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}