What Castle Rat Got Right and Wrong at Their Live Show!

Hey brother, really appreciate your kind words! I’m really glad you had a good time 🤘 Clearly a lot of work goes into what you do so thank you and all the best!!

Thank you for the sermon, minister 🙏

Wish those guys will come where I can go and see them.
By the way – using any musician earplugs in concert will give more positive experience.

Saw Castle Rat in Charlotte and had an absolute blast! I liked Wraith Knight but it was halfway through his act that I noticed it wasnt just PA music. First time hearing Unto Others and was surprised I bought all 3 albums at their merch booth

I was more than a bit sceptical, when I saw the first pics of castle rat, like I always am with bands that seem to come out of nowhere and rise up in such a short time. I thought they were just another boring ass sleeptoken, dogma, etc.. but I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s been a while since a band with such heavy tuned down guitars was getting famous outside of a small niche

9:56 – Totally agree; Meg White did that when I saw The White Stripes play Adelaide back in 2003. All of the audience had a clear view of her hammering away at the drums, rather than having her hide behind them the entire gig, and you really got the sense that she was directly involved in making the music, and not just "phoning it in" behind the cymbals, etc.

And it makes sense – in a full band, people are going to pay attention to the vocalist and guitarists before noticing the drummer and keyboardist, but in a two person set-up, people will get fatigued visually just watching the same guy with a guitar the whole gig (especially if there's no other background visuals or light show/set dressing behind them), so having a two person crew side-by-side and fully visible greatly helps with managing that element of "sensory fatigue" – and it does sound like the opener would have benefited greatly if they had done something similar.

Dude! You might remember I've been out of the scene for a long time, so I've been catching up on some bands because of your channel. Castle Rat is awesome! I write DnD content and am the only woman on staff at my publisher, so seeing Riley the "Rat Queen" swinging that sword in the videos won my heart. 🤘🤘

I saw them last Friday in Charlotte,
Night Rayne must have heard you, I could see him quite well
Onto Others was a little too loud and distorted
Castle Rat rocked it, great sound, great visuals/lighting, great choreography m/

I saw Castle Rat at a small venue here in Finland last year. It was great. Met Riley and Franco after the show, bought a patch at the merchtable too.

How about (regarding ticket sales) the metric used eg Spotify listeners or YouTube watchers are categorised by their location ?? I’m reasonably certain that the analytics are available

🤘🏽💀🤘🏽

Best Metal Voice in blackgaze ..

The Rat Queen has a new guitar!!

I’m really excited that I’m seeing them this weekend. Been waiting for a chance since their first record dropped.

Castle Rat & the Browning? Metal is dead AF in 2026. Lame crap. It’s like a circus of nerds playing D&D dress up. Not exactly clash of the titans or Ozzy Metallica 86 or Morbid Angel entombed and Unleashed 91

castle rat is going to be a massive band, you can feel it. they already pull large crowds to their live sets, its a band that you would easily bring friends or family too who didn't even listen to metal for the live experience. it helps that their music kicks ass.

A metric that you can't measure online is how hardcore and dedicated a fanbase is. Sure, they might have 150k listeners on Spotify but if EVERY one of those 150k is a guaranteed ticket sale that's far more valuable than 500k casual listeners who could care less to spend their time and money to see you live.

Your description of the parking deck fills me with dread and anxiety.

I live in MA and they are scheduled to stop at the Worcester Palladium. I was on the fence, especially since I'm seeing Knocked Loose on the 9th and Dillinger Escape Plane w/Many Eyes on the 17th. I may have to pull the trigger based on this review. Thanks man! This was excellent

Castle Rat is an experience 🤘🏼🤘🏼👊🏻👊🏻

I'm not usually into metal that's fantasy, power metal, folk metal and things like that. Or like the Dio type of 80's fantasy theatrical stuff. I go more for thrash with retro metal. They are so good that they won me over.

Just saw them in Baltimore. Fantastic. Although wish there was more of a pit, and it was so packed that it was hard to see and move around at times. But that wasn't the band's fault.
Probably would be better in an ampitheater. Which they are probably going to be playing soon.

A year or two ago they played at the Ottobar in Baltimore which is a tiny venue local hardcore and punk bands tend to play at and now at a full sized club sold out

I am reminded of seeing Author and Punisher. We watched him setup his contraption for about an hour and thought 'WTF'? Then we listened for 45 minutes and our thoughts changed to 'WTF!" He was good, we appreciated it. I absolutely want one of those things, especially that ram he has in his right hand that jams against a pad and makes a bombs in thunder sound. How cool is that?

Point is, had he draped a black sheet over it, we would never have understood. He isn't a band (Or wasn't then, it was like 20 something years ago). That sort of thing can work, but we have to know the performer isn't just playing us a CD. Then again in this day, full bands are playing over stems in Reaper, and they are wireless so we can't even say they weren't even plugged in. So maybe no one cares much anymore.