[kj] Good Review of Dublin gig

[Paul Gorman [Online]]

http://iwozthere.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/killing-joke-the-button-factory-dublin-2010/ 

    Killing Joke – The Button Factory, Dublin 2010
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October 27, 2010iwozthere http://iwozthere.wordpress.com/author/iwozthere/ 

Its 1980, the Lyceum Ballroom, London. Hardcore punks with spiked Mohicans are urinating in the sink, whilst others dose up on cheap drugs and overpriced alcohol. Killing Joke are about to unleash mayhem, the audience hypnotized into an apocalyptic frenzy. 2010’s punks are now respectable 40/50 somethings dressed in Next catalogue chic, using hand dryers by gleaming urinals before sitting down at candlelit tables to enjoy a glass of Chilean Merlot with their wives. Killing Joke don’t care, its still 1980.
30 years have not diminished the energy, passion and brutal force that Killing Joke conveys live  /or/ on record. Sure Youth looks more like Arnold Palmer in his white jacket and golf visor. Yet his receding hair and portly frame do not detract from the CPR-like hooks that pound relentlessly from his Rickenbacker bass. Paul Ferguson is completely hidden behind the drums, but his tribal rhythms are at still the epicenter of every song. And Geordie … is still Geordie with his nonchalant demeanor and cool swagger; his signature chainsaw riffs like having your inner ear scraped with sandpaper.
 http://iwozthere.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/jaz.jpg But it’s all about Jaz Coleman, part showman/part devil/part asylum inmate. Think Jack Nicholson playing his characters in ‘Batman’, ‘The Shining’ and ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ … at the same time. Jaz is the Anti-Bono; each song punctuated by political hatred, establishment distain and doomsday rhetoric. Whirling around the stage like a man possessed, his piercing eyes staring into a dark oblivion, Jaz believes in every word, every note, every gesture that spouts from his beloved band. 
The set weighed heavily on both ends of their career, opening with ‘Tomorrow’s World’ from arguably the greatest debut album of all time, through favourites ‘Eighties’ and ‘Love Like Blood’, to newbie’s ‘Depthcharge’, ‘The Great Cull’ and title track ‘Absolute Dissent’. Three decades ago I was knocked senseless across the Lyceum’s dance floor. Tonight, just a single elbow in the shoulder from the subdued but partisan crowd. Pogoing, age and gravity do not mix. My phones’ camera stopped working half way through as if to say “Stop taking pictures and enjoy the gig for feck’s sake!”
Oh but I did. With mobile safely in pocket, classics like ‘Requiem’, ‘The Wait’ and ‘Wardance’ surged across the audience, even if we didn’t surge back. At the end, Jaz thanked us all and then each member of the band, before dropping the microphone on the floor and scurrying off into the darkness amongst a tirade of feedback.
For many the night was purely a nostalgia trip. But for those of us that get The Joke, it was another incredible chapter in their pursuit of truth. I almost cried.
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