Gig review: Ice Nine Kills at Motorpoint Arena

“What does Nottingham have for us?!” is the cry from The Devil Wears Prada’s Mike Hranica as we enter the main arena, with the standing area and most seats already full for the support act. We sadly only catch their final song, the American metalcore outfit closing out their set with ear-piercing screams and a warm-up mosh pit down the front. We do however catch all of Creeper’s set, the Southampton goth-rockers at their dramatic best tonight as they play tracks exclusively from their two Sanguivore albums. 

The lights go out and the ominous introduction of A Shadow Stirs plays over the speakers, before the band emerge from the shadows in their signature vampire make-up, launching straight into Mistress of Death. There are a few technical issues initially, with frontman Will Gould’s microphone dropping out and then not working altogether. The stage hand acts quick to replace it though, with normal service resuming for Blood Magick (It’s A Ritual) and Lovers Led Astray.

Recent single Headstones is then a big highlight, garnering the first singalong from the Creeper fans in the audience, which based on the number of T-shirts spotted in the crowd is a sizable amount. Parasite is up next but is sadly cut short due to an incident in the audience, with Will Gould doing the right thing by stopping the song and making sure everyone in the crowd is OK.

Once he gets the thumbs up, the set concludes with a double dose of heaven: Black Heaven and Cry To Heaven. Despite the couple of hiccups, it’s a great way to start the night. 

After a quick top-up of festive beer, it’s back into the arena for tonight’s headliner: Ice Nine Kills. As the sound of Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand plays over the speakers, a giant curtain covers the stage mimicking the opening warning on a red band film trailer. It reads that the show is suitable for “PSYCHOS ONLY”, making us immediately both intrigued and concerned about what we are about to witness. From the moment the curtain drops, the show is a wild, deranged ride through horror movie history, with a giant inflatable hooded killer, with bright blood red lights for eyes, looming over the back of the stage for the entire show. Each song performance is also segued together through a series of VHS-style vignettes, with the screens playing commercials that look like they came from the 80s and 90s.

Absolutely no expense has been spared either in the production, with fire balls intermittently shooting out the front of the stage, the heat of which we can feel from our front row seats. Sparks also fall from the ceiling and at one point shoot out of the lead guitarist’s axe during a fierce solo. At one point, we even get bog roll guns firing reels of toilet roll into the crowd – something we’ve never seen before and likely won’t again! There’s also a ton of actors who turn up on stage during each song, whether that’s dressing up as Hannibal Lecter during opener Meat & Greet or running around as zombies during Evil Dead tribute, Ex-Mørtis.

The biggest chameleon of the lot, though, is frontman Spencer Charnas, who morphs into iconic horror movie icons throughout the show. Whether it’s American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman during Hip To Be Scared, Candyman during Farewell II Flesh, Batman’s Joker for The Laugh Track or Pennywise The Clown for IT is the End, he plays the part with full conviction. As his fancy dress changes so too does the stage, with the LED screens on the platforms transporting us inside The Matrix on The Great Unknown, before taking us on a trip to The Bates Motel for The Shower Scene, with one of the actors and Spencer cleverly recreating that classic moment from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, too. 

Theatrics aside the band sound great too, backed up by none other than Ska legends Reel Big Fish who are amazingly tonight’s horn players. They come to the fore during a couple of fun covers, the first being Katrina and the Waves’ Walking On Sunshine, before The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ iconic The Impression That I Get. The crowd soak up every single moment of the set too, loudly singing along to each song, creating giant mosh pits and sending wave after wave of crowd surfers. 

After the whirlwind main set draws to a close, the band return for an encore of Nightmare on Elm Street tribute The American Nightmare, Spencer dressing up one final time as Freddie Kruger. Art The Clown from the Terrifier movies then appears for tonight’s grand finale, A Work of Art. He causes plenty of havoc while he’s on stage, playing bass and drums before then swinging a burning baby above his head via the umbilical cord – yes, you did read that sentence right! 

Definitely not a show for the faint-hearted but tons of fun for horror movie buffs, Ice Nine Kills really pulled out all the stops to deliver a truly memorable show. As someone who didn’t know too much about Ice Nine Kills or their music before this show, they certainly gave fans their money’s worth with a production-heavy, 90-minute set that went by in a blink of an eye. 

Super fun and more than a bit batshit crazy, we would not hesitate to return into the madness and catch Ice Nine Kills live again in the future. With the band already slated for Download 2026, it seems local metal fans don’t have long to wait.

Ice Nine Kills performed at Motorpoint Arena on 10th December 2025.

@iceninekills