RAT BOY | LIVE REVIEW
Tramshed, Cardiff, Mon 5 Feb
Rat Boy, real name Jordan Cardy, is probably sick of being compared to Jamie T. The two might share a scruffy homegrown charm and suburban singer-rapper delivery, but Rat Boy’s 2018 tour makes it clear that the similarities are only surface level. Live and in the flesh, 21-year-old Essex lad Cardy is more raucous, more rockstar, and far less refined than his Wimbledon counterpart. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is a matter of taste, but Rat Boy’s punk charm is firmly his own.
With surprise album project Civil Disorder dropping only last week, fervour amongst the teenage crowd is high. Most were queueing long before the doors opened. Support acts Ten Tonnes and the always charming Bad Sounds play to a full room, whipping the audience into a joyful, bouncing frenzy before Rat Boy’s stage set up has even begun.
When the self-styled ‘scum king’ finally arrives, it’s with a few helping hands: Noah Booth on drums, Harry Todd handling guitar duties, and Liam Haygarth delivering punchy bass. Todd in particular excels. The chemistry between the four makes it clear that Rat Boy has outgrown its origins as a one-man band for the better, even if it is still Cardy that carries the moniker.
Robust gang-chant tracks like Teenage Tearaway land well with the audience, even if the chorus refrain of “I’m a teenage tearaway / I’m a tearaway teen” isn’t exactly nuanced. Elsewhere, Wasteman’s clunky lyrics about the rich getting richer and the “modern day class war” come across less like the sharp social commentary of Cardy’s idol Kendrick Lamar and more like the kind of sweeping statements you’d find in a GCSE English essay.
Fortunately, Cardy delivers these clangers with enough blasé confidence that you don’t really care. Rat Boy fans aren’t here for a balanced discourse on capitalist economics, they’re here to have a blast and chuck Stella over each other. The show may be a little rough around the edges, but it’s also a damn good time. All hail the king of scum.
words and photos JASPER WILKINS