Kerrang! - 20.07.2019

Frank Carter: an intensely

distracting bandmate

62 KERRANG!

photo:

TOM PULLEN

Joe Duplantier suddenly

dreaded getting the

gas bill through

■ Nothing kicks off the

first night of a UK tour

• and your biggest
  London show to date
  under your own name


• like a microphone
  malfunction. It is a
  fate that unfortunately
  befalls Andy Black this
  evening, meaning the
  crowd can’t hear a single thing he’s singing
  during opening song Ribcage. When the
  frontman clocks this cock-up halfway through
  the song, however, it does not faze him in
  the slightest. Rather, he pairs the toothiest of
  grins with a look that mixes charm, confidence
  and humour, and gets on with it. “Normally
  for the first song in the set you can fucking
  hear me, but because it’s London we thought
  we’d try something new,” he jokes when
  finally handed a working mic.
  Thankfully, the rest of the set goes as
  smoothly as his between-song patter, as he
  deals out solo material from his recent The
  Ghost Of Ohio album, which is surprisingly
  Springsteen-esque. In fact, he shows flashes
  of The Boss throughout – they both have a
  compelling stage presence, both have that
  gravelly baritone voice, sing songs about
  running away from places and getting out of
  their hometown (the album’s title-track is a
  particular set highlight), and both crank out
  massive chorus after massive chorus with a
  genuinely natural ease.
  What makes Andy Black uniquely him,
  though, is his journey. He’s always been
  open about being bullied as a child and his
  struggles with alcohol and anxiety, and when
  you listen to the likes of Homecoming King
  and Put The Gun Down, you realise they’re
  songs born from great pain that now provide
  hope to thousands nightly. It’s a point evident
  this evening as the crowd unite for the latter’s
  ‘Can anybody hear me? / Can anybody see
  me? / ’Cause I think I lost my way / Just put
  the gun down’ chorus. It’s actually quite hard
  not to feel moved by it.
  Tonight, Andy Black shows that he is many
  things – funny, a consummate frontman, a
  talented songwriter. Some elements are,
  naturally, different from when he’s fronting
  Black Veil Brides, but one that isn’t is that
  he remains one of rock’s most endearing
  and inspirational figures. JENNYFER J. WALKER

ANDY BLACK shoots

to thrill at biggest UK

solo show to date

OHIO

CALLING

ANDY BLACK

ELECTRIC BALLROOM, LONDON

05/07/2019

KKKK

Andy realised very

late what was on the

bottom of his shoe