Photo: Thomas Green

Live Review: Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes – MelodyVR – Brixton Academy – In VR

Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes took to the legendary Brixton Academy stage this past Friday night, for a special night of music live streamed to their fans via the MelodyVR app. The show took place as a part of the venue’s current MelodyVR series, that’s taking place over the time the venue can’t put on shows.

The MelodyVR app allows fans to watch shows from 360° cameras around the stage, and fans can do this through their phone or VR headset. I decided for this show that I’d experience it within an Oculus Quest 2 VR headset, I’ve not been to an in person gig in over 9 months and really wanted to try and be immersed in the show for this special MelodyVR gig. The show was very quick and easy to set up on the app, the menus were easy to navigate.

Frank Carter and Co exploded onto the stage giving it their all, right from the get go. The immersiveness of the VR made it feel like I was on the stage with the band. I started watching the stream from the “Director’s Cut”, which cuts between the different cameras to show the best camera to the viewers. This was horrible in VR, not only was it disorienting to keep jumping between cameras but one of them was a camera on a track moving sideways, which in VR can cause motion sickness. Safe to say I swiftly moved to static camera views. I imagine the “Director’s Cut” is probably great if you were to be watching from your phone.

Whilst moving to the static cameras made the experience a lot more enjoyable in VR, I found switching between cameras to try and find the best view was annoying. When switching cameras there was a five second delay as it tried to load the next camera; It wouldn’t be too much of a problem if it didn’t also skip five seconds through the stream, making you miss bits of the show. This probably wouldn’t be an issue if the stream also had a video on demand, like a youtube livestream. This would allow the viewer to pause and play when they needed to. A video on demand, even if it only stayed up for only a short while after the show, would be good for those not able to view the show at the time it aired. Although the fact there was no video on demand for the show did make it feel more special and exclusive.

Despite all this Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes put on a show, the band were set up in a circle around the middle of the stage (where there was a camera point), with three large screens at the back of the stage that showed live feeds of the fans watching from home. I always get annoyed when bands don’t take advantage of the fact they’re playing a live stream, and don’t interact with fans, so it was great to see the band stopping every few songs to talk to those fans on the screens, the band were also joined via the screens by Download Festival organiser Andy Copping, and even Frank Carter’s mum.

The fifteen song setlist was made with fan input over the past few weeks, and included all the bands greatest songs. Ending with a specially dedicated version of ‘I Hate You’ dedicated to coronavirus, which was interrupted by Frank Carter losing it laughing at a fan who was watching along with a bearded dragon on their head. Watching the fans on the screen, it looked like everyone was enjoying the show, and I think this was also felt by the band who seemed to be very happy with how the night went. Maybe not the same shared energy of an in person gig, but it still felt special.

Photo Credit: Thomas Green