I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: June 28, 2015] King’s X

This was a special concert for many reasons.  The first was that it was a chance to see my college friend Sean for the first time in probably 20 years.  We’d chatted online, but this is the first time we actually got together–thanks King’s X!

The second reason is because it was my first concert at the Sellersville Theater, a venue I’ve heard a lot about on XPN, but never been to.  When I walked into the venue I genuinely thought it was an optical illusion.  It’s an old movie theater, with about 300 seats.  Talk about intimate!  King’s X and dUg Pinnick (with Corey Glover of Living Colour) frequent the place, and I can see why.  The fans are right there and they (we) are all into it.

So hanging out with Sean and with great seats, I was totally in the mood for a great show. And King’s X delivered.

I saw them a year ago in Sayresville.  And they were really good.  But this show was somehow so much better.  Perhaps the venue, perhaps because all of the fans were for King’s X (the last show had a double headline), but whatever it was, the energy (and the sound) was amazing.

The visuals were really dark–a few moments they were in near total darkness.  So it made photos ops a little difficult.  But occasionally the lights would brighten and I could get some decent pics.  There was no flash, just the band in front of backdrop. And that’s all they needed.

dUg gets such an amazingly deep resonant sound from his bass.  It’s truly unique and so very low without being distorted.  Those opening bass notes were unmistakable King’s X.  And of course, dUg’s voice is still tremendous.  He sounds just as good as ever–in fact he sounded better tonight than in Sayreville–hitting some really interesting notes an maintaining his great croon throughout.

Guitarist Ty Tabor was absolutely on fire.  They jammed a number of songs, many with super long guitar solos  And Ty was just amazing–doing fast runs, and interesting effects.  A number of times the just looked at each other laughed and kept jamming.  It was great.

And of course Jerry Gaskill is such a great drummer.  He can play soft and delicate and then turn around and smash the hell out of things.  He can also stop on a dime–their time changing songs are tight as anything.  (But it’s hard to get picture of Jerry)

And they also still sound great vocally–their harmonies are as beautiful as ever.

dUg was really into the show tonight.  He bantered with the crowd (saying how nice it is to be in a seated venue), he made jokes with us (his bass seemed to be out of tune a lot–although I didn’t notice while he was playing).  And he said that he was a in a bit of a funk at the beginning of the show but we snapped him out of it.  Which was very cool.

So it turns out that they played the exact same setlist as they did last year.  That’s a little disappointing except that I didn’t realize it.  There were songs I’d hoped they play (which they did) and songs that I didn’t think they’d play (“Pleiades,” which although they played last time I didn’t expect it).  People shouted out requests, but dUg said that they can’t play complex things anymore–they were more daring in their youth.  Nevertheless, they nailed the complex time changes of everything they played.

Despite the same songs, there were some definite distinctions.  The jam in the “World Around Me” was tremendous.  The exceptional “Everybody knows…” was fantastic.  And “Over My Head” went on for about ten minutes, with dUg telling story about his grandmother, and then walking through the crowd as we sang the chorus and clapped. (The front section of the theater is just a few tables and chairs and dUg walked freely through the audience, high fiving people.

The setting was so intimate that as the show was drawing to a close, he grabbed his unfinished bottle of Jack Daniels (I think) and then handed it to the tables and told them to pass it around and see if it makes it all the way to the back.  The bottle made it back to us in row J, although it then drifted off somewhere else.  Now that would be a cool souvenir.

I was so psyched to hear “Pleiades,” because Ty sounded great doing it.  And once again “We Were Born to Be Loved” was outstanding.  The end of the song has a number of stops and starts and they are just so tight, it’s a treat to watch the three of them never miss a cue and get all the starts perfect.  As Sean said, I could listen to them play that for an hour.

The main difference for me was that the last time they were “supposed” to play “Goldliox” (it was on the set list but they ran out of time).  This time, the show started at 8 and they had to be done by 11 so they had plenty of time (even with playing for over 2 hours) to add in “Goldilox.”  This proved to be a lot of fun because the crowd sang literally the whole thing.  And dUg mimed along with us.  It was basically just Ty on guitar and us singing until the one or two heavy parts where the rest of the guys kicked in.

And, for extra special they played an extra song “Mission,” a song which dUg said he would fuck up (and he did) but it sounded great nonetheless.

dUg said that the show was over but the party wasn’t because they were going to stay for a meet and greet.  And indeed, the three guys sat by the tiny merch table (how different to see such a huge merch production at Rush (shirts for $45) and then to be able to buy a $2 bottle opener for King’s X.)  Sean and I dithered about waiting on line which pretty long, although honestly how many people could it have been?  But it was a Sunday night and I was pretty happy at the thought of getting home before midnight.  So even though I said I would meet the guys (for stories and hugs) the last time, I had to resist the temptation once more.

The show was so good that even not getting to shake hands couldn’t dampen it.

But if they ever play Sellersville again, I think Sean and I will be there (and maybe I’ll get Sarah to come next time) and we’ll schedule in time for some pictures.

2014 Sayreville, NJ	2015 Sellersville, PA
Groove Machine	Groove Machine
Pillow	The World Around Me
The World Around Me	Pillow
(Thinking and Wondering) What I’m Gonna Do	Vegetable
Vegetable	Flies and Blue Skies
Flies and Blue Skies	Everybody Knows a Little Bit of Something
Everybody Knows a Little Bit of Something	A Box
A Box	Over My Head
Over My Head	Over and Over
Over and Over	Pleiades
Pleiades	We Were Born to Be Loved
We Were Born to Be Loved	encore
encore	Go Tell Somebody
Go Tell Somebody	Dogman
Dogman	Goldilox
	Mission