Patrick Wilde comes out swinging — and possibly tripping over a loose amp cable — with “Will You Be There,” a punk rock fireball that takes a blowtorch to performative allyship. From the opening blast of distortion, the track sprints forward like it’s late for Pride and forgot its glitter. Wilde’s voice snarls with the glorious energy of someone who’s officially run out of patience for rainbow capitalism and has decided to express this through maximum volume.
The heart of the single is its perfectly delivered call-out: “It’s easy to wave a rainbow flag during Pride. But will you still be there when we’re under fire?” In other words: thank you for your seasonal rainbow latte, but where exactly are you on the other 364 days? Wilde skewers the sort of “allies” who proudly post a flag emoji but vanish faster than limited-edition Pride merchandise.
Musically, the track throws elbows with the punchy chaos of IDLES, the swaggering riffs of Queens of the Stone Age, and the political growl of Rage Against the Machine. Yet Wilde shapes all of this into his own noisy concoction — part protest, part punk sermon, part “stop pretending you care” anthem.
“Will You Be There” ultimately feels like a rallying cry shouted from the front row of a sweaty basement gig. Raw, witty, and delightfully fed-up, it drags fake allies into the spotlight and asks the one question they’ve been dodging. And it does so with enough distortion to rattle every rainbow mug off the corporate shelf.
Review by Thomas Imposter