I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: July 15, 2017] Kings X

My friend Sean and I were planning on making it three years in a row seeing King’s X, but he had last minute other plans (which I hope were wonderful).

It was interesting seeing them again (this is 4 times in four years! and three years at Sellersville).  Usually I can’t get good pictures at Sellersville, but either it was brighter, or my new phone is better in the dark.  Either way the photos were much better.

My friend Charles is a huge fan of the band and he warned me the dUg’s voice wasn’t sounding so great.  I thought that last time around, so I was prepared for the worst.  But he sounded okay.  As another friend said, he is 66 years old.  The only real drag about that is that his voice was so amazing that’s it’s a shame he’s lost that instrument’s full range.

But the band itself sounds great and since everyone in the audience is a huge fan, we did a lot of the singing for dUg, anyway.

I’m also intrigued that sometimes they project their logo behind them and sometimes they don’t.  This time they didn’t.

So the band has opened with the same two songs for the past 3 years.  Despite the repetitiveness, it’s a pretty solid opening.

And the band played a lot of extended section, with Ty on guitar and Jerry on drums just rocking out and dUg’s awesome low rumble shining through.  As usual the sound was pretty excellent, although I couldn’t help but thing that Ty’s guitar was a little quiet and maybe their microphones were a little quiet when they sang harmonies as well.

We all enjoyed singing he rousing chorus of “Pillow” and “Flies and Blue Skies” is a popular mid tempo song.

Last show I recorded a clip of “Vegetable” and I did i again this time because I love the juxtaposition of vocals.  dUg asked for help with “Cigarettes” which was given.  I was happy to be able to get a pretty clear shot of Ty playing the guitar on this song.

The band’s religious nature is hard to understand at this point.  I feel like dUg has left the church but that he can’t fully let go.  Or he left and came back, it’s unclear.  And a song like “Pray” has a fascinating angle on religion that can go either way:

Pray for me, pray for me
If you really do believe
Then don’t forget to pray for me

But what I love most about that song is that dUg busts out his 12 string bass–now THAT is an incredible bass sound.

The crowd went pretty nuts for “Black Flag” (the guy next to me recorded pretty much the whole thing).  And I was pretty delighted to hear “Lost in Germany” (which was a n encore last show).

I was sure that they’ve played “A Box” every time we’ve seen them, but I see that they didn’t at the last show.  When I compared the four shows, I found that at this show they didn’t play anything that we had heard at least once before.  But there were three different songs from the previous show at least.  Someone kept shouting out for “The Fine Art of Friendship” which I would have loved to hear, but I gather they don’t play much from Faith Hope Love anymore.

I really love Ty’s guitar work on “Summerland” and the harmonies are really fantastic.

Of course, everyone loves “Over My Head.”  Last time was just after the election and he said a few things political.  This time he said that people tell him not to be political.  And while obviously I think he was wrong to say not to blame Trump (he also said not to blame Hillary or anyone else).  It’s hard to disagree with what he said was “common sense” which I think is not common sense for too many people: do unto others as you would have them do unto you and love your neighbor as yourself.  So even if he;s not religious, he still knows it.

There was a funny moment at the end of the song when someone in the front section shouted “Gretchen misses you.”  dUg was puzzled and said say hello to Gretchen for me.  When she said it again, he said “I don’t know what that means, but if you like what you hear go tell somebody” a perfect segue into “Go Tell Somebody.”

I will never get tired of them playing “We Were Born to Be Loved,” and that whole ending sequence is just incredible to see live.  Every single time.

The band left for a brief encore and came back with two more songs.  Perennial encore “Dogman” and then what would they play next?  dUg said that many of you probably first heard us on Headbanger’s Ball with this song.  I was really excited to hear a classic old King’s X song.  And I did.  They played “King,” which was pretty awesome, except that they played it last time too.

It seems like the band is always possibly going to play “Goldilox.”  And I guess if they don’t run out of time they will?  I’ve only heard it once, but I feel like I could have heard it every show.  This particular show had more songs than any previous one though (and I thought some really long jams as well), so I can’t complain too much.

I’d love for them to throw in some different songs.  They have so many albums and so much great music.  I’ve noticed that they mainly play the single from their various records, but I have to assume that the majority of people going to see them now are just die-hard fans and we’d all love some deep cuts–basically anything else would be fun for novelty’s sake.

But it’s still great hearing the songs they play.

After every show, the band does a meet and greet.  Even though it was late on a work night, I stayed (waited about an extra 20 minutes).  The guys were super friendly, i got to shake each one of their hands, they signed a CD and even took a very funny picture with me.

I wasn’t sure if I’d need to see them again if they came around.  It’s a long drive and it’s a lot of the same stuff.  But it is always good to hang out with a friend, so we’ll see what 2018 holds.  But guys, throw in some new old stuff and I’m there!

2017 Sellersville, PA	2016 Sellersville, PA
Groove Machine [4]	Groove Machine [4]
The World Around Me [4]	The World Around Me [4]
Pillow [3]	Flies and Blue Skies [4]
Flies and Blue Skies [4]	Vegetable [4]
Vegetable [4]	Run [1]
Cigarettes [2]	Looking for Love [2]
Pray [2]	Pray [2]
Black Flag [4]	Black Flag [4]
Lost in Germany [2]	Cigarettes [2]
A Box [3]	Summerland [2]
Looking for Love [2]	Over My Head [4]
Summerland [2]	We Were Born to Be Loved [4]
Over My Head [4]	encore
Go Tell Somebody [3]	Lost in Germany [2]
We Were Born to Be Loved [4]	Dogman [4]
encore	King [2]
Dogman [4]
King [2]

 

2015 Sellersville, PA	2014 Sayreville, NJ
Groove Machine [4]	Groove Machine [4]
The World Around Me [4]	Pillow [3]
Pillow [3]	The World Around Me [4]
Vegetable [4]	(Thinking and Wondering) What I’m Gonna Do [2]
Flies and Blue Skies [4]	Vegetable [4]
(Thinking and Wondering) What I’m Gonna Do [2]	Flies and Blue Skies [4]
Everybody Knows a Little Bit of Something [2]	Everybody Knows a Little Bit of Something [2]
A Box [3]	A Box [3]
Over My Head [4]	Over My Head [4]
Over and Over [2]	Over and Over [2]
Pleiades [2]	Pleiades [2]
We Were Born to Be Loved [4]	We Were Born to Be Loved [4]
encore	encore
Go Tell Somebody [3]	Go Tell Somebody [3]
Dogman [4]	Dogman [4]
Goldilox [1]
Mission [1]