Laugh At Your Peril
My goodness, now that has taken ages! Infected by the mid-80s smash hit Love Like Blood, a political micro cosmos prevented me to think any further about KILLING JOKE. But, things changed, borders fell and my love was rejuvenated and renewed by Pandemonium and Democracy. Since then I try to catch them live. It never worked out. I don’t know how many times I tried it and had to cancel again…
Well, here we are. In the year of 2018. KILLING JOKE are on the verge of their 40th anniversary (2019) and celebrate it with a career-spanning best-of-set tour around the globe. And this time we will meet…
On this Sunday evening, KILLING JOKE brought their Laugh At Your Peril Tour to the :: Live Music Hall :: in Cologne. Not my first choice but you can’t have it all. The Brits are known for to play utterly loud and with little lights. Both matters, the LMH is generally suffering from. At the end it did not turn out be the sound and light nightmare I expected. I have already experienced shows there much worse.
:: pics :: TURBOWOLF ::
The venue was loosely filled, when Bristol based rockers :: TURBOWOLF :: entered the stage a bit too early and launched into Cheap Magic. I didn’t know the band before but was nosey after I read descriptions like: “their sound contains elements of Rock’n’Roll, Psychedelia, Heavy Metal, Punk Rock and Electronica. And that is exactly what TURBOWOLF sounded like! What a wild mix. Even more, what a wild performance!
Singer and keyboardist Chris Georgiadis (who looks a bit like Frank Zappa) romped the stage like no other. He whirled and twirled, rolled on the ground, jumped, ran and danced ecstatically. Crazy man, crazy music. TURBOWOLF take the title of their third album, The Free Life (released in spring), literally. They did not really focus on this one, although it is said and written, that this is their best effort so far. Instead they played an equal mix of songs from all three records.
Tonight (and on the whole tour) TURBOWOLF actually played as a trio. As I heard it at the merch, bass player Lianna Lee Davies is pregnant and thus had to sit out the tour.
TURBOWOLF delivered a high energetic show yet didn’t receive an equal amount of response. The crowd was a bit lame. Believe me, Chris Georgiadis did his very best to entertain and animate the audience. His announcements were sharp-tongued and his method to make the crowd remembering the band’s name was hilarious. And worked. For twenty fans or so ;) Crazy show! And I liked it.
Setlist: Cheap Magic, Ancient Snake, Solid Gold, Very Bad, Domino, A Rose For the Crows, Rabbit's Foot, The Big Cut
:: pics :: KILLING JOKE ::
:: KILLING JOKE :: took the stage a half our later at 9 pm. The venue was now filled till the back wall with the fans pushing close to the stage. First the band members appeared one after another, then Jaz Coleman in his black jumpsuit stomped onto stage like a robot.
The band was in fact welcomed warmly yet not with the uproarious applause I expected from fans that meet the most favorite of all favorite bands. Strange. Must have been the lazy Sunday mood.
For almost forty years the band is around, having left a huge impact on genres, scenes, bands and musicians alike. The have released 15 full-lengths and numerous live, remix, splits, collaborations and other releases. To play now a career-spanning best-of set would not be the easiest thing if you don’t want to play for many hours each night as a band.
In fact, many records were not considered in this set. Instead, KILLING JOKE focused on selected ones and played several songs from each album.
One step ahead the self-titled 1980 debut was, followed by the self-titled 11th record. The last three albums were considered, also What's This For...! and Pandemonium. Well, you can do so but I missed many other tracks. On the other hand, I’m sure, even if KILLING JOKE would have played a 6hrs set me (and other fans) would have nagged though. So, everything’s fine :)
However, the official part of the set hardly reached the 60 minutes mark, followed by a 4-track encore with Love Like Blood first. This was actually the only moment, where I saw the crowd rocking out a little bit more and singing along. So far, there was hardly anything to see and to hear like this. No mosh pits, no pogo, no full-throated chants.
But, to take off my rose-colored glasses for a minute, the band didn’t do any better. The ongoing world tour visibly took its toll. All band members seemed to be tiered. Bassist Martin "Youth" Glover minimally moved and played straight-faced, hardly showing any emotion, while guitarist Geordie Walker seemed to have some technical issues. The robotic-like performance of Jaz Coleman surely played to him. His voice and vocal performance, anyway, was still brilliant. As his job has it that way drummer Paul Ferguson was the only one who acted highly energetic.
Maybe it was because it was a bigger venue and energy could not unfold the way it would have done in a smaller club. Since I have never seen KILLING JOKE live before I can only compare what I saw with what I was told or I have seen on live videos, etc. I think, I have not seen the best KILLING JOKE show yet, so I will try it again next time, the notorious Brits are around. Rose-colored glasses on – I had a fabulous evening, wiggling my hips and singing along every single song :) KILLING JOKE made my day. Thank you for this!
Band: Jaz Coleman (vox), Kevin "Geordie" Walker (git), Martin "Youth" Glover (bass), Paul „Big“ Ferguson (drums), Roi Robertson (of Mechanical Cabaret live-synth)
Setlist: Unspeakable, European Super State, Autonomous Zone, Eighties, New Cold War, Requiem, Bloodsport, In Cythera, Butcher, Loose Cannon, Labyrinth, Corporate Elect, Asteroid, The Wait, Pssyche // Love Like Blood, The Death And Resurrection Show, Wardance, Pandemonium
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