Luke’s Alphabet Tour – F: Feed the Rhino at Takedown Festival – 18th March 2012
Although not headlining the Guitar Central stage at Takedown, Feed the Rhino are the most highly anticipated band of the day. Having taken a well-earned hiatus from touring whilst they recorded their new album ‘The Burning Suns’, the Kent-based crushers are back to prove why they’re regarded as one of the most exciting live acts in the UK.
Following from Polar.‘s brutalising display of hardcore punk, the room fills and swells with sweaty pierced and inked bodies who are looking to throw down and scream until their tonsils rupture. Hitting the stage like a audio atom bomb, Feed the Rhino are here to cause nothing but chaos and incite as much carnage as they see fit.
It’s a staple part of their live show for frontman Lee Tobin to spend the majority of the set in the pit with his ‘Rhinos’, and lose every inhibition while pouring his heart into the microphone. Lee knew this was the plan and the crowd knew – unfortunately, no-one alerted the security. The burly men in front of the stage refuse to let Lee (or any of the band) over the barrier into the hundreds of fans before them – much to the obvious annoyance of those on and offstage. [Allegedly, the security punched one of the guitarists in the back during this performance.]
The tattooed, vest-wearing purveyors of anger smash and kick their way through a half hour of hits including ‘Knives’ and ‘Mr. Red Eye’. As Tobin scales the PA system for what was undoubtedly planned to be the ‘big ending’ his screams go unheard as security pull the plug on his microphone. Tobin continues to scream and shout at his devotees below while the rest of FTR throw themselves across the stage in a flurry of shreds and drum assault.
For half an hour, the heroes of hardcore make the Guitar Central stage their own. The pit awash with fist throwers and headbangers creating the anarchy that FTR feed off and despite the crowd control possibly being a touch too harsh, it’s a fantastic comeback show for a band who are making huge waves in the aggressive music scene.
Read Luke’s interview with Lee Tobin of Free the Rhino here.
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