[kj] [KJ[ 20/04/2012 – Trezzo Sull’Adda “Live” Club - Italy (Gig Report)

Luca Signorelli lucasignorelli at alice.it
Sun Apr 22 02:02:54 EDT 2012




> 20/04/2012 – Trezzo Sull’Adda “Live” Club (Gig Report)

>

> The only KJ northern Italian live date for 2012 was not only held

> (again) in the Milan area – not exactly “typical” northern Italy – but

> also at the “Live Club” of Trezzo sull’Adda, who gets my vote for

> Italy’s most lugubrious and depressing live venue. Everything inside

> look put together almost in random fashion, and the minimalist décor

> just add to the feeling the band will play in the middle of nowhere.

> But despite being (literally) in the middle of nowhere, the club

> tonight gets filled very rapidly, as word of mouth about Killing Joke

> return to sunny Italy has been quite strong in the last few weeks.

> Thanks also to the great impression “MMXII” (best KJ album in the

> last 20 years, my humble opinion) has made here. Tonight the crowd is

> a very nice mix of mature and very young, and the floor vibe is

> definitely better than 3 years ago at Milan’s “Rolling Stone” (when

> the “mature” side of the mix had been prevalent).

>

> And the boys are back, and it was very nice to see them again. They

> don’t have aged aged in the last 3 years, and while Jaz is looking a

> bit tired, he’s fiery and articulate as usual. I sense the tour has

> been quite some work so far, with a lot of interesting human

> interaction inside the band (which means yelling, fighting, arguing,

> laughing and arguing again – the usual). Check Youth’s blog for more

> inside stories about this, and I bet the next few entries will make

> for some fun reading. There’s a lot of pressure put on the crew by the

> band, but they’re all nice people, and the soundman (John?) did a

> great job tonight. So, it looks like there’s all the right kind of

> tension here, and very little of the boring, deadbeat shit (except, of

> course, the bus transfers, which the band hates). I anticipate a very

> entertaining night, but I’m bit worried about the setlist (which I

> understand is being changed a bit every night). It is “MMXXII” heavy,

> and most of the old stuff comes from the first album – and no “What’s

> This For”! How will the crowd react.

>

> I shouldn’t have worried, because something akin to a miracle happens

> – namely, the crowd reacts a lot more to the NEW stuff that they do

> with the classics. It helps the news stuff is the strongest new

> material the band has written in a long time. But if anyone had told

> me I would have lived too see people getting apeshit crazy for the

> material of the latest and 15th album of a band currently in its 32nd

> year of career… but, ok, this is not “any band”, this is Killing Joke,

> and my unshakable faith in their music has some very good reason. The

> club PA is muddy as hell and be cursed laws regulating volumes on live

> gigs, but – as I’ve mentioned before – the mix is very nice, and they

> boys are putting a lot of energy into this show. They start slow

> (“Requiem” is solemn, but hardly a scorcher) but oh boy, they really

> warm up fast, and by the middle of the show – with “Chop Chop”, an

> underrated classic, getting a blistering rendition – they’ve REALLY

> shifted into full gear. The “Killing Joke effect” then kicks in –

> everything start magically to connect and make sense, blood is pulsing

> in your temples, head shaking, legs moving has they had a life by

> themselves. And – again: it feels so RELEVANT, so much like a

> soundtrack for our day and age. Some people think they were far ahead

> of their times 30 years ago, and now their time has come, but my own

> sentiment is far simpler – they’ve ALWAYS been in tune with their own

> time. Particularly live, they’ve this marvelous ability to underscore

> the mood of a age: scary and violent between 1979 and 1983, bombastic

> and glittering during the 80’s, elusive and moody in the 90’s,

> convulsive and confused during the “noughties”, and now, appropriately

> apocalyptic and sombre, but at the same time channeling a heightened

> mix anticipation and fear. Even “Asteroid”, a song I normally don’t

> care much for, felt different tonight, and I sang it with the crowd.

>

> However, while the new song made the definite core of tonight gig, it

> must be said that the final handful of classics (Wait, Psyche,

> Wardance and a brutal Pandemonium) put the evening close to a real

> orgasmic frenzy. I was in Geneva in 1983 for the legendary “bomb

> shelter concert” (the one from whom the final “torchbearers” bit of

> the “Eighties” original video taken), and nothing will ever compare to

> that night (maybe, who knows). But I must say that, with the possible

> exception of Meshuggah in a good night, nothing still compares to

> Killing Joke live (and even Meshuggah on a good night just approach KJ

> level, they don't really get there).

>

> And from the satisfied faces of some very young crowd members at the

> end of the gig, I must say it wasn’t just the self satisfied musing of

> a old Killing Joke fan. Even if, while driving into the night back to

> Turin, I had to admit to myself that to be a old Killing Joke fan

> these days feels really good.

>

> LS




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