Biography
We'll impart some wisdom. There are two types of opening acts at a festival. Most bands have to take the stage at 11 a.m. to thank the sparsely populated meadow for making the effort to crawl out of the tent. Your performance often acts as a soundtrack for those who stand in line to buy receipts, or those who want to quickly plop their intestinal contents in a toilet, because those toilets usually turn out to be just within the bounds of decency at that morning hour. And then you have FRANK CARTER & THE RATTLESNAKES. We once saw him rush onto a stage in his early years, and the man went on such a rampage that everyone who got past ticket control sprinted toward the moshpit in rabid enthusiasm and like an accomplished G.I. The only thing missing was that they all chanted "I wanna be your drill instructor" together. Crazy stuff. Carter then served the good Belgians forty minutes of rousing rock'n roll, for a generation that has a good excuse for having missed the heyday of Dead Kennedys, The Damned or The Sex Pistols. After all, they weren't born yet. We also promptly felt sorry for all the teachers who ever had to deal with the Carter phenomenon. The boy collected, we're pretty sure, burnouts from teachers, just as the girls in his class collected pictures of New Kids On The Block or Kylie & Jason. Flash forward to today. The times when Carter was asked as a warm-up are definitely part of the passé composé. More, these days you have to act faster than your shadow to still get a ticket to his hall concerts. Moreover, the man was recently kindly asked to replace Johnny Rotten when the remaining Sex Pistols play the punk record of punk records in full in August. Then you are no longer a novice, you are punk royalty. A few months ago Carter released "Dark rainbow" (2024), on which he leaves out a bit of the trammel that (hardcore) punk carries with it and drives thirty left and right in a zone where you can actually drive seventy. I wonder what that will mean when he conquers our stage and subsequently the entire Grote Kaai (Grand Quay) on Tuesday, August 6 in Operation Overlord-like fashion. Carter has meanwhile evolved so much from opening act to co-headliner that, if he grows any more in the coming years, next time we will have to build an extra field to accommodate every fan.