Toots Killing Joke Glasgow 2/10/08 Gig Review!

Discussion
1

In short DEVASTATING!!!

I suppose I better add a bit more to it…although I do have an amazing hang-over right now while I type this and watch Tom & Jerry.

Around 4 I nailed a few wines while blasting Melvins and Killing Jokes “Tension” (my fav song of the momment!) from the Peel Sessions album. I then got a call from one of my mates who was absolutely cunted from the night before so couldn’t make the gig…now Killing Joke is this particular mates all-time fav band so in order to miss the original line-up he must have been REALLY battered! Because of this no show I had to try unload 3 tickets as a couple of days earlier he’d asked me to buy 3 tickets and pay me the money on the night…anyway back on track…

Jumped on the bus just after 5 and made our way to Glasgow where I picked up another paypal eh pal. Nailed some food then hit Glasgows ABC venue where we also had Ladyhawk playing on another floor.

We got there pretty early so we went in to check out the merch stand and have a few drinks. After my few drinks I went outside to unload my extra tickets…while out there some guy gave me an extra ticket he had!!! This was a stroke of luck really as this enabled me to sell the tickets at £15 each (they were £20.50 face value) and still make my money back…which I did. On the way back in the prick of a bouncer tried to stop me from coming in as he said i hadn’t asked them if I could leave the venue??? What a cwunt! Anyway I sweet talked my way in with my accent and naive act.

8:20 and Killing Joke comes on and the place goes nuts. Jaz in his boiler suit, Youth wearing a white suit with a white tennis visor, Geordie in normal clothes and a baseball cap on backwards looking cool as fuck as usual and lastly Big Paul on drums looking quite small. They may not have played with eachother for a long time but they’ve still got the original line-up magic and were tight as fuck and had a GREAT sound!

The cities which are only getting a one off show are in for a treat as The Joke have crammed in LOADS of classics. I got completely shit-faced and the setlist was a bit of a blur but I can tell you they started off with Requiem then went into Change…not long after that we got Are You Receiving and Turn To Red. Then in no particular order we got The Wait, Pssyche and the song of the gig Tension (such a fuckin badass funky ass song!!)…we also got a Paul Raven tribute in Love Like Blood where Jaz was saying Paul Ravens son was with them. We also got Eighties, Asteroid, Bloodsport and numerous others…the final encore was War Dance If I remember rightly…there were about two or three encores by the way.

So all in all it was a superb gig with awesome sound and loads of classics from one of the best bands ever. If you can make any of these gigs DO IT! And like I was saying don’t fret if your town is only getting the one show as KJ will basically cram two nights of shit into the one!

Geordie was a bit of a rebel as he would take sneaky drags on a fag then quickly give it to a roadie standing behind the speaker next to him. I could also smell da errrrb in the crowd so Geordie wasn’t the only one breaking the no smoking ban. Geordie’s a rebel…easily the coolest guitarist on the planet.

Jumped on bus back to Edinburgh and when we got back I nailed a beast half pounder cheese burger and chips. The end of the night/morning came with some badass drunken wii ping pong action!

Here’s my cool tour shirt I shall wear with pride tonight as i’m off to see Dubstep maestro Skream Vs Drum’n’Bass don DJ Hype.

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!!!

2

Sounds like a good time… who opened? i know ascention of the watchers is doing that on the NYC dates. sweet shirt too. how much was it? what other stuff were they selling at the merch booth?

3

Cool man.

Fellas I have a confession. I only have the Millennium single (cira 94). And, really the only other song i know is “Eigthies”. Lame, I know.

I really like Geordie’s guitar work - being a big fan of Murder Inc. What should i check out of theirs?

4

Since you have the Millenium single, I’d say go ahead and get the Pandemonium CD from that same year. It’s a solid album in the same vein as the single, though a bit of a departure from their early material. After that, probably Extremities, Dirt And Various Repressed Emotions (1990), which features Martin Atkins on drums. Their debut s/t LP from 1980 is solid post-punk, Night Time from 1985 is a well-produced, hook-driven collection of uptempo tribal beats, light synths, clean vox from Jaz, and great guitar work from Geordie. That album and 86’s Brighter Than A Thousand Suns are my favorites, though Brighter leans in a more pop direction with some of the songs. Democracy (1996) is buried in a psychedelic layer of noise, but underneath that layer is a bunch of great songs, reminiscent of their early 80’s material. The s/t from 2003 is hard and heavy (Dave Grohl on drums), well-produced, with elements of most of their previous work evident. Hosannas From The Basement of Hell is dark and strange, not very accessible, but still a good album.

Pandemonium and Extremeties, try those first.

1002

5

Dont feel bad slack: my only real knowledge of KJ is Metallica’s cover of "The Wait’ from the Garage Days EP.

Note: I fully expect a barrage of comments from Mr. Tooth in about 30 seconds…

6

How do you get the Millenium single without the Pandemonium album? Weird.
Anyway, Pandemonium is excellent. The two most recent albums are really, really good too. In fact, I actually prefer '90s/00s Killing Joke to most of the '70s/80s Killing Joke most folks like.

7

Slack, have you listened to The Damage Manual at all? It’s basically an updated Murder Inc. lineup. Check out “Age of Urges” from the 2000 s/t LP, or “I Am War Again” from 2005’s Limited Edition - both great songs. Connelly and Geordie are both great on all of their stuff (can’t forget “Scissor Quickstep” from the One EP).

1002

8

yea i’ve got all the damage manual stuff. i do like it - but not as much as the murder inc. stuff. the murder inc stuff are solid songs whereas some of the damage stuff is a bit more “experimental” sounding. i bought their “box” with two CDs and the poster.

i bought the Millennium single because i thought i’d get the single to see if i liked what they were doing at the time. plus i should mention that i bought that single when it came out. it wasn’t a retrospective purchase.

what about the “night time” album that has Eighties on it? Since I like that song, is the rest of that album good?

I’ll snag Pandemonium.

Man, Dave Grohl gets around.

9

Night Time is awesome. “Eighties” isn’t even the best track, so if you like that song, you’ll love this album. The big single is “Love Like Blood”, which has a dancey rock beat and great melody. The whole feel of the album is cold and dark, but the upbeat rhythms and melodies lift it up. Geordie’s guitar hooks are memorable in almost every song. “Darkness Before Dawn”, “Love Like Blood”, and “Tabazan” are the highlights. If there’s a negative, it would be that there isn’t much variety of sound on this album, it’s almost a one-trick pony (reminds me of the Fire Dances album in that respect). It’s also short, don’t remember how long in total, but there’s only 8 songs on Night Time. Like I said before, this is my favorite KJ album, along with the follow-up, Brighter…, so I’m gonna recommend it highly.

1002

10

They re-released Nighttime with a whopping nine bonus tracks!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VWWSCA/ref=dm_dp_cdp?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1223070509&sr=103-3

They’ve had better album covers though, that’s for sure…

11

Same goes for Brighter, just boring band photos. Oh yeah, Slack, the one KJ album you don’t want to buy is 1988’s Outside The Gate, which is more or less a Jaz Coleman solo album…or should be. Geordie’s on it, but it’s nothing but drum machines, bad synths, cringe-worthy lyrics, it’s really bad. I like one song , “My Love Of This Land”, but it’s about as poppy as KJ gets. Avoid (the artwork sucks, too).

1002

12

thanks for all the info and feedback fellas.

i’m off to the pub. [:P]

13

Dude… BITCHIN’ review, and that is a pretty sick shirt.

My first Killing Joke albums were “Pandemonium” and “Democracy,” the latter still being my favorite. “Night Time” fucking rules, and their debut is fantastic.

Though, to be honest… I REALLY wanna snag “Outside the Gate.” [cool]

Dunno… I just have this unreasonable attraction to albums everyone seems to hate. Case in point: “Cheesy.”

14

The last album, Hosannas From The Basement Of Hell took a while to grow on me but I now think its one of their best. It sounds to me like warfare - monumental, monstrous somehow, really powerful sound.

15

Not sure who opened here? It wasn’t AOTW…who ever it was were pretty bad though.

Most of the merch stuff they were seling was stuff you can get much cheaper from some on-line shop linked with KJ’s website. So if you want kick ass KJ stuff click on the plastichead link on…

http://www.killingjoke.com/

The stuff that was unique to the tour was the shirt I got which was also in black, a beanie, a lighter and few hoodies…one which I wanted had the 1980 self titled image on the front and the tour dates on the back…sadly they only had smalls. They were also selling vinyl.

Jaz was drinking a cuppa tea during the gig…he’s badass.

16

Glad you had a good time ya radge. There’s no way I could’ve made it, ah well there’s always next time. I’ve not got many of their albums so I don’t mind missing the original line-up (assuming it was a one-off?) but would love to hear them, especially Geordies guitaring, through a masi PA.

17

Geordie is easily the coolest most badass guitarist on the face of the planet.

18

Thanks to a generous contribution by an anonymous donor, I’ve listened to “Outside the Gate” about three times over…

DUDE. This is the best Killing Joke album ever. I am seriously not kidding.

Okay, not as earthshatteringly epic as “Democracy” was, but STILL. For all it’s wretchedness, it’s pretty cool. Granted, the lyrics and synthwork are AWFUL, but for some reason they WORK with me. Geordie’s guitar is very subtle on this, and I like it. Jaz could afford to force his vox alittle more but whatever. I’m DEFINITELY splurging on the reissue. [cool]

Best tracks:

America
Unto the Ends of the Earth
Outside the Gate

19

heh. I actually like OTG, but it’s far from their best. The songs for me are: OTG, America, Love of this Land.

20

Thanks to a generous contribution by an anonymous donor, I’ve listened to “Outside the Gate” about three times over…

DUDE. This is the best Killing Joke album ever. I am seriously not kidding.

Okay, not as earthshatteringly epic as “Democracy” was, but STILL. For all it’s wretchedness, it’s pretty cool. Granted, the lyrics and synthwork are AWFUL, but for some reason they WORK with me. Geordie’s guitar is very subtle on this, and I like it. Jaz could afford to force his vox alittle more but whatever. I’m DEFINITELY splurging on the reissue. [cool]

Best tracks:

America
Unto the Ends of the Earth
Outside the Gate

Who are you, and what have you done with the REAL Icepick?! [shocked]

1002