Review: Electric Callboy at RAC Arena
Electric Callboy at RAC Arena
w/ Ice Nine Kills, coldrain
Friday, September 4, 2026
Bringing all the hardcore metal mixed with generous lashings of Eurovision-style camp, Nordrhein-Westfalen’s Electric Callboy returned to Perth last Friday for the first time in three years with the arena-level ambitions of TANZNEID, this tour a massive step up in capacity from the nightclubs and music halls of 2023.
The first act of the night was Japan’s coldrain, a troupe that easily switched between thrash and nu-metal, full of screams and swagger, unexpectedly of a vintage where they had influenced their headliners far more than the usually expected reverse. With his lyrics and speech given in a softly accented Californian English, lead vocalist Masato Hayakawa held an easy charisma as he thanked the early audience, told of the band’s love of Australia, and directed the mosh pit into the first of many whirlpools that would be undertaken tonight.
Gone too soon from the opening slot, the group could easily have played twice as long and still been cheered back for more. Highlights of coldrain’s set included Mayday, Rabbit Hole, and closer Chasing Shadows.
Whilst coldrain had played hard, fast, and straight down the line of heavy metal expectations, second support band Ice Nine Kills were a different beast altogether. Though the music stylings underlying INK were akin to those performed earlier, the accompanying on-stage antics were absolutely next level.
For first song, The American Nightmare, lead singer Spencer Charnas wore a Freddy Krueger-style metal claw as he danced around both saxophonist and trumpet player, yet things got weirder still for second track Meat & Greet, with Hannibal Lecter trolleyed out to centre stage, set up to wreak his greatest hits havoc from Silence of the Lambs.
It was immediately and exceedingly obvious that Ice Nine Kills took a lot of their musical inspiration from horror, with further nods to Pet Sematary, American Psycho, Scream, and 1989’s version of The Joker. At times their set felt as much a pop culture convention as an actual concert, with many laughs along the admittedly blood-soaked way.
The band had placed videos on the screens between and during their songs in a most polished yet faux eighties-analogue way, one being a self-insert by the entire group into a Full House or Who’s The Boss-style sitcom. This visual led into the fantastic track Welcome to Horrorwood, both Ice Nine Kills’ commentary on the true crime genre and the clearest opportunity given from their entire setlist to cross over into full musical theatre territory.
After such an eclectic, entertaining, and downright hectic performance, the crowd definitely felt the need for some deep breaths before the next act. Various fans circulated backwards and forwards across GA standing, finding their sweet spot for what was ahead, with many dressed as tinfoil astronauts or with daggy fluoro tracksuits to such numbers that even the most dedicated Kath & Kim convention would blush.
Whilst their pre-show overture had acted as a relaxed, percussive heartbeat to those listening, Electric Callboy unleashed opener TANZNEID upon Perth with full power and a throbbing speed, alongside fireworks, flames, and glitter cannons, all exploding in near-enough unison. RAC Arena suddenly found itself cosplaying as one of the alt dance clubs of Berlin or Ibiza, with all energy levels immediately ramped to the venue’s roof.
Singer Nico Sallach told the audience the group had been on this tour for so long—ten months, plus the European festival season—and it was only within the last three weeks that the project they had been promoting all that time had been released. Therefore, it had been only their Japanese and now Australian fans able to fully integrate all the latest tracks into any concert prep, with the new album readily to hand.
Sallach then paired with fellow lead vocalist Kevin Ratajczak to bring 2022 fan favourite Tekkno Train to its rightful place of worship. With a hilarious and ridiculous set of lyrics, covering wetty spaghetti, lipstick on feet, and various other ‘did they really sing that’ double takes, it was at this particular moment the first crowd surfer of the night broke cover, held aloft by his peers for several glorious seconds before being deposited safely to the waiting security below.
With more than enough pyro across the evening to give either our local New Year’s Eve or recent seasons of Skyworks a decent run for their money, copious amounts of glitter and confetti were also liberally spreading throughout the venue. At one point, a member of the tour crew came out with one lonely leaf blower, a pitifully underpowered yet absolutely hilarious reaction to the growing debris.
Hypa Hypa brought hi-viz and fake mullets galore with the visitors from Europe inadvertently mimicking Perth’s own FIFO suburbs, before the outright dorkiness of MC Thunder suggested the stylings of Crazy Frog, but somehow good.
Half the crowd was enthusiastically pogoing by this stage, with the ground floor attendees using wine bladders as DIY beach balls and multiple wigs literally flying. With everyone so giddily happy in this oddly askew sense, it would not have been surprising for a sudden rendition of the Macarena to break out somewhere within the venue. It did not, but it certainly felt a close-run thing.
About halfway through the performance, drummer Frank Zummo was given space by his bandmates to provide an epic drum solo, after which Sallach gave a heartfelt tribute to the Sum 41 alumni and the jagged circumstances by which he had joined Callboy two years ago. Amongst the growled lyrics, the camp, and the staged chaos of the night overall, there remained a throughline of utmost care and authenticity from those onstage to all beyond, whether it was fans, the backstage, or even to each other.
Electric Callboy decided to delve further into their boy band era, dressed immaculately in white to bring forward the classic I Want It That Way—yes, the Backstreet Boys version, which was played straight down the line, as if the last thirty years had not occurred. The audience lapped the moment up, singing at some of their highest volumes across the entire night, and instinctively held their phone torches up high.
The boys further told the crowd they had penned their own ballad to follow, The Way You Are, but after a verse and a half of relative calm there, the metal and the growls returned. This grinding change of pace was demonstrated magnificently with a Lear Jet, that epitome of nineties entertainment luxury, in a broken, bloody death spiral on the big screen behind.
With a touching, if slightly disorientating range of emotions felt throughout the night, Electric Callboy were certainly a singular experience in the live entertainment space. With many of their songs disco bangers in semi-metallic casings, this evening allowed both hardcore fans and those more casual to be swept up in the vortex. The band’s musical direction twenty minutes into the future at any given moment may have been nigh on unknowable, but it would always be a guaranteed party on the journey.
PAUL MEEK
Photos by Adrian Thomson
