[kj] Killing Joke Last Night in LA

[LONESTYLE at aol.com]

Yes, that would have been a master plan for that is what we did is eat at  
the venue. Everyone was supposed to meet for a gathering at El Compadre on  
Sunset. 
 
Did any L.A. Gathers go to that by the way?
 
 
~LB
 
 
In a message dated 10/11/2008 9:54:45 PM Pacific Daylight Time,  
concrete_cookie at hotmail.com writes:

see...  Thursday i took a 4 hour exam, then rushed home and actually 
contemplated  cooking a meal..then got takeout...THEN on friday morning I thought "why 
 didn't we all meet at the HOB restaurant again?"  D'OH

-  Homer


 
____________________________________
From: LONESTYLE at aol.com
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:34:34 -0400
To:  gathering at misera.net
Subject: Re: [kj] Killing Joke Last Night in  LA


Yes, us too bro. Wish I saw some of you other L.A. Gathers too. :)
 
~LB 
 
 
In a message dated 10/11/2008 5:22:10 PM Pacific Daylight Time,  
sandstorm_mg at yahoo.com writes:

 
I was at the show and fully agree to your review. It also saves me from  
writing one as I just finished driving 400 miles to get home today from teh  show. 
I'll probably post some thoughts later after I'm a little more rested.  Great 
meeting you LONLYBOY and Countess!

-----  Original Message ----
From: TB <partyslammer at socal.rr.com>
To: A  list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)  <gathering at misera.net>
Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 9:34:31  AM
Subject: [kj] Killing Joke Last Night in LA

Holy shit, what a  great show.  Hands down, the best KJ show I've ever seen 
(even if  that comes down to one '85 show and one '03 show and a lot of  
bootlegs).

Got in the House of Blues just after 8pm and  immediately noticed security 
was tighter than just a month ago.   Staff used metal detector wands to 
search people going in and I noticed  several LA police cars parked on the 
street.  It took a long time  for the venue to fill up, but from what I could 
tell, there was a lot of  walk up ticket buyers and by the time KJ came on at 
10:40, the place  seemed pretty full. The audience was a pretty wild mix of 
old school mid  80's punkers and younger people right outta High School.  I 
even  saw one guy with an elaborate Lords of the New Church/Alien Sex Fiends  
jacket and another punker easily in his mid 50's with a balding, grey  
mohawk.

Pigmy Love Circus, which was the opening band, played a  45 minute set. 
Music was kind of a mix of Revolting Cocks and The  Supersuckers with a  bit 
of Rob Zombie thrown in. One of the  guitarists looked to be about 300lbs and 
the rest of the band were  pretty butt-ugly. Not bad, and they got a decent 
reception from the  crowd, but not what I'd call a good opening band for KJ.

After a long  wait, Killing Joke came on and opened with "Requiem."  For the  
first few songs, I was kind of on the fence about Paul Ferguson but when  
they broke into "Follow The Leaders" about 5 songs in, I was blown away  with 
his playing and power.  For the most part, the crowd was  really into the 
show and the floor got progressively more rowdy to the  point there was big 
time moshing by about the halfway mark.  A big  highlight about 45 minutes 
into the show was the double shot of "Love  Like Blood" (dedicated to Raven 
with Jaz emotionally tearing up at the  end of the song) and a very fast 
paced "Eighties" (prefaced with Cobain  comment) back to back.  I was kind of 
surprised to hear Communion  buried near the end of the set in a nice, 
compact version although the  keyboard string backing was a bit too prominent 
for my tastes.   "Pandemonium" which closed out the main set also had a 
sparser  arrangement that had at times just bass and drums which worked very  
well.

Other songs in the 24 - 25 song set played included Change,  Primitive, The 
Wait, Exorcism, Madness,  Money Is Not Our God and  Asteroid.  Speaking of 
Asteroid, I can kind of understand why they  continue to play that one as 
they clearly have fun playing it and the  audience really loved shouting 
"AAAAASTEROOOOOIIIDDD!!!" at the key  moments.  The only song I really 
noticed kind of fell flat was  "Turn To Red" which Youth clearly enjoyed 
playing but left the audience  cold.  For the encore, one of the new songs 
was played, "Fresh  Fever From The Skies" which was pretty decent.  The 1 
hour 45  minute show ended around 12:15 with a slamming version of "Wardance" 
and  it almost looked like we'd get a second encore but that didn't  happen.

The band was really tight.  Jaz was at his theatrical  best, focused and in 
fine voice and as the show went on, he clearly grew  more and more happy with 
the very enthusiastic response.  Whoever  said Geordie's tone is much 
improved is absolutely right on.  Much  more "crunchy," and compact and not 
drenched in out of control feedback  like it was on the '03 tour.  Geordie 
managed to chug down a bottle  of wine through the set and started on a 2nd 
one during the encores but  didn't smoke even though at one point he motioned 
frantically for a  smoke from one of the roadies.  Youth who reminds me 
physically of  Paul McCartney fit in very nicely and clearly enjoyed being 
onstage with  the band and several times thanked the band for getting him his 
start in  music. I do have to say, I preferred Raven's playing over Youths'. 
Big  Paul killed on drums really giving energy and new life especially to a  
lot of the Night Time and Pandemonium album tunes.  Although it's  clear 
there's a noticeable divide between Jaz/Geordie and  Paul/Youth,

The sound was actually one of the best sounding shows  I've caught at the 
Hollywood HoB.  Not overdriven although for the  first couple songs, I 
thought Geordie wasn't high enough in the mix and  Pauls drumming sounded a 
bit thin but that improved to perfection by the  3rd song or so.  The asshole 
factor on the floor got a little out  of hand by about an hour into the show 
which some of the more aggressive  slamming nearly causing a few fights.  One 
obnoxious fat blond  chick with huge tits wearing a tiara was drunkenly 
slamming into anyone  she could but if someone, especially this older balding 
punk (who almost  passed out loaded near the end of the show) would bounce 
into her, she'd  get all pissed and angrily shove back at them.  However, I 
hung out  on Geordies side about 15 feet back from the stage and rarely had 
anyone  bounce into me.

The very limited merchandise only consisted of two  black t-shirts 
respectively  featuring the first two album's  artwork for $25 (no XXlarge 
for you big boys) and a small black pamphlet  of Youth's poems.

I *really* hope they put out a new album and  continue touring.  Based on 
last night's show, they still have  plenty of fire for a lot more music, on 
stage and off.  Those  catching the Chicago and NYC shows are in for a huge 
treat.

T.B.  

_______________________________________________
Gathering mailing  list
_Gathering at misera.net_ (mailto:Gathering at misera.net) 
_http://four.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/gathering_ 
(http://four.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/gathering) 







_______________________________________________
Gathering  mailing  list
Gathering at misera.net
http://four.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/gathering







 
____________________________________
 New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining,  
Movies, Events, News & more. _Try it  out! _ 
(http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) 

 
____________________________________
Want to do more with Windows Live? Learn “10 hidden secrets” from Jamie. 
_Learn Now_ 
(http://windowslive.com/connect/post/jamiethomson.spaces.live.com-Blog-cns!550F681DAD532637!5295.entry?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_domore_092008)   =

_______________________________________________
Gathering mailing  list
Gathering at misera.net
http://four.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/gathering




**************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination.  
Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out 
(http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://four.pairlist.net/pipermail/gathering/attachments/20081012/9835340d/attachment.html>