SOUNDTRACK: KING’S X-Live Love in London (2010).
King’s X released their most recent studio album (XV) in 2008. It’s been over 11 years since that album came out, but King’s X still tours pretty much all of the time. They could stand to mix up their setlists a bit from time to time, but they still sound quite good.
This concert was recorded on January 22nd, 2009 at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, London, not long after XV came out. As such, there’s five songs from that album. I actually thought that XV was a pretty great record and these songs hold up quite well with the rest of them.
This show starts, as pretty much all shows do since 1998 with “Groove Machine.” The opening of “Welcome to the Groove Machine” is a pretty terrific way to introduce everyone to the show. There’s a slightly extended drum solo in the middle of the song, but nothing too crazy.
It’s followed by a new song, “Alright.” It features some noisy, squeaky guitars from Ty and is really catchy in it’s simplicity: “one day, (one day) it’s gonna be, (it’s gonna be) alright, (alright) alright, (alright).” It’s a great singalong.
They quickly jump back to a popular older song, the quiet “Pleiades” although Ty’s vocals sound a little rough on it. Back to the new record with “Move,” a suitably heavy song, although “What is This?” from the debut sounds much heavier. You can tell that the band has played this song a lot because dUg is taking liberties with the lyrics: “make you look so fucking foolish.” And lots of screaming. Ty’s guitar solo is pretty epic.
Then they play two songs in a row from the King’s X album. Up first is the quieter, grooving “Lost in Germany.” Then comes the hugely popular “Black Flag.”
There’s a slightly lengthy bass intro as the band sets up for the new, absolutely rocking song “Pray,” in which dUg once again grapples with religion. This is another great chanting sing along.
The crowd is excited for the older hit “Dogman” with some more noisy guitars from Ty. dUg also makes his first reference to pot: after the line “give me a skinny or give me a fat,” he says “I smoke em fat.”
Then there’s two new songs in a row, yet another great sing-along” Go Tell Somebody.” It’s a rollicking song that sums up the King’s X ethos pretty well: “if you like what you hear, go tell somebody.” It leads into the quieter, Jerry Gaskill-sung “Julie” a nice song to his wife. That’s it for new songs as they head back to older albums from here on out.
The first one is the only song from Ear Candy, the rocking “Looking for Love.” It’s interesting when Ty plays his solo how much the rest of the sound goes away–its just bass and drums while Ty totally wails–a rather long solo for a 4 minute song. The crowd goes crazy for “Summerland” and you can hear them all singing along to the final verse including the slight pause before it resumes. The crowd is incredibly important at a King;s X show and it is a bit of a shame that the crowd is mixed out of this recording (I assume it’s a sound board and therefore hard to include the crowd). But it’s really great to hear them sing along. Apparently there is also a lot of chanting and such that is edited out for the CD, which makes sense, but is a bit of a bummer if you want to really capture the energy of the show. At one point dUg even says, “I’ve been listening to you sing all night and its alright.”
They end the set with a rousing 12 minute “Over My Head.” The extended part comes in the middle, of course. The song slows down, the crowd starts clapping, and Ty plays a really impressive solo–just wailing around for almost 3 minutes. Then it’s dUg’s turn. “Welcome to the first church of rock n roll.” He talks about the importance of music, “Music got me through a lot of hard times.” In almost every show he tells a different anecdote. This time he says, “My aunt told me … its a terrible thing for a man to do the thing he don’t wanna do for the rest of his life. I decided I’m gonna make fucking music.” The audience then sings the chorus pretty much through to the end of the song.
Then it’s time for the encore. (The encore breaks are not evident on the CD).
dUg says, “This is gonna be a long encore.” It starts with two songs from Faith Hope Love. “It’s Love” was probably their biggest hit. The song sounds great, although truthfully their impeccable harmonies sound a little tired here. It segues perfectly in to “We Were Born to Be Loved” one of the great show enders. This version runs to about six minutes with some extended moments and that awesomely complex ending sequence.
They come back out for encore 2 and play the lovely “Goldilox.” The big difference this time is that the crowd sings the entire song! Quite well, in fact. dUg doesn’t sing anything and Ty only plays loud between verses. It’s pretty cool. They stay with the debut album for one more song, “Visions” which returns to the heaviness but keeps the harmonies. The end part really takes off with some wild soloing from Ty as dUg and Jerry jam out together. It’s a wonderfully wild ending and seems like it could easily end the show. But the band isn’t quite done yet.
There’s one more encore break before they come back with the wild “Moanjam.” The harmonies seem to have completely lost them by this time, but musically the song is outstanding. Just a terrific jam that rocks out.
King’s X is a fantastic live band. And, yes, they are getting older and don’t sound as amazing as they once did, but the energy and musicianship is still top-notch, even almost ten years after this release.
[READ: February 2019] King’s X: The Oral History
Even though I love music, I don’t read a ton of books about musicians. I kind of don’t care all that much about most of them. I want to see and hear you play, but I don’t have that much curiosity about your history.
But some bands defy the tropes of rock, and their story can often be interesting.
I’ve been a fan of King’s X for decades and while I knew some things about them, it turns out I didn’t really know all that much. And it was fun to read this book which is constructed of quotes from the band and the people who were around them.
Most of the people interviewed are huge fans of the band and can’t understand why they were never more successful (a common question). I also had no idea there was such acrimony between the band and their original unofficial fourth member, Sam Taylor (who does not make an appearance in the book).
Perhaps the biggest surprise to me was to find out that Doug (dUg) Pinnick is 68 years old! That certainly explains why his voice doesn’t sound superlative live anymore. And fair play to him. He sounds amazing for 68. He is otherwise ageless, that guy. dUg had a pretty rough upbringing–and he didn’t get a bass until he was 23!
Jerry Gaskill has had two heart attacks (!) and is from South NJ (and now lives near Asbury Park–wow, imagine running into him). He started a band with his dad and his brother when he was 7 years old (Jerry & The Knights). And they played out at weddings and parties. How fun is that?
Ty Tabor is the baby at 58. Ty learned guitar from a babysitter and has been playing ever since. He and others keep referring to Phil Keaggy. I had never heard of him and was surprised at Ty’s reverence. Well, Keaggy is an adult Christian musician so clearly I’d never have heard of him. I listened to a track or two but just couldn’t get past the Christianness of it to really appreciate the music. (more…)
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Back in 2017, after seeing King’s X for the fourth time, I felt like I didn’t really need to see them again–they tended to play a lot of the same songs after all.
