[kj] Auckland & Wellington gig reviews

[Brendan Quinn]

Hi all,

 

What can I say. Waiting this long for Killing Joke to play NZ was totally
worth it. The experience started with seeing the amazing documentary
premiere in Auckland, sitting a few seats down from Jaz and family, then
seeing Killing Joke perform in Auckland with my little sister, my fellow
stalwart Kiwi Gatherer Johnny and his lovely wife Jo and their friends, then
a road trip down to my favourite place in the world Wellington to see
Killing Joke again - listening to a CD I made of the tour setlist, and
finally unexpectedly getting to hang out with the band for a few hours
afterwards.

 

The documentary and Q&A with Jaz set the tone for everything that followed
and provided context and meaning to the whole experience. From that point on
I decided to try an experiment - to see if I could do as suggested in the
doco, interpret events on a deeper level, and use the experience to provide
focus, inspiration, direction, understanding.and I have to say, it worked. 

 

Johnny's review of the Auckland gig was spot on - tiny venue, packed full of
intense but generally good natured people, bit of an odyssey to the bar and
back to get a drink, fucking amazing performance, and yes I wore a
Soundgarden t shirt to a Killing Joke gig. However it was an original,
faded, 1994 Superunknown Screaming Elf t shirt signed by Ben Shepherd - and
I guess I must have missed the memo about only wearing a band's t-shirt to
their gig! I also have to point out that when I hugged Johnny's wife Jo
goodbye she exclaimed "God you're drenched" - by which she really meant "God
you rocked out way harder than Johnny" ;p

 

Anyway yes, the venue was packed to the gills, although not uniformly,
cutting across sideways to get a final drink just before it kicked off (Eyes
Wide Shut music) required all my years of gig diplomacy and munter
management skills - by which I mean I sent my little sister. Haha.

 

I've read a few reviews, one of them mentioned being packed far too tight,
poor sound, fights, not being able to see anything, but personally it's hard
for me to comment because I was very close to the front, and being 6'3" I
never have a problem seeing anything, in fact I'm usually more concerned
that I don't stonewall the people behind me. I also read some comments in
that article about lame old people standing still, so fuck knows.can't have
it both ways. I didn't see anything in the crowd that you don't see at
pretty much every gig, think it's a storm in a teacup started by someone who
had a bit of a valid point about over-crowding but took it a bit far. 

 

The sound was fine, except too loud, past the sweet spot where extra volume
doesn't add impact, but shit I was having fun either way. 

 

Killing Joke's impact on stage, it's hard to say because I'm such a huge fan
and had decades worth of restrained fandom to vent, and I'd be preaching to
the choir because it seems that everyone but for us Kiwis had seen Killing
Joke before, but holy shit. I don't think I stopped moving. I was totally
exhausted, hoarse, and deaf at the end, with a huge grin on my face,
buzzing. I knew the setlist cos I had looked up the Aussie gigs, it was
exactly the same as the other gigs on the tour except for the we got 5 songs
vs 3 for the encore: Bloodsport-Madness-Change-TDARS-Psycche, the first two
being additions. We certainly earned it! Change was amazing, much more
powerful live than I'd have thought, one of the stand-outs to me, as was
TDARS, MINOG, Beautiful Dead, Pssyche.it's very hard to pick songs out
individually.

 

My sister and I drove down the next day to the Wellington gig, about a 8-9
hour drive. I was worried that either the band would be tired from the night
before, or I wouldn't have as much energy after blowing my load at the
Auckland gig  the night before, on top of the road trip, hangover, being
hoarse etc. Not a chance - I'd say it was as good as, if not better than the
Auckland gig, I was right up front and centre in front of Jaz and even more
amped than at Auckland, esp for the encore. Stunningly powerful performance.

 

We hung around after the gig, as the roadies were packing up I told Jason
Bowld the stand-in drummer and Reza that it was an amazing gig and asked
them to pass that on to the rest of the band. I sweet-talked the roadies and
asked that they pass on my appreciation to the band, in particular one guy
who may have been tour manager I'm not sure, anyway I'd found out his name,
Diamond something (great guy)- he looked like he was straight of the music
video for Come on Eileen.  Anyway I asked him for the setlist and got
it.then about 10-15 mins after the gig had finished, a few of those people
left in the venue were invited downstairs to a private bar to hang out with
the band. I like to think it was because they noticed me going nuts at both
gigs, but it might have been sheer persistence, brown-nosing, or I might
have been standing next to a nice blonde they wanted to get downstairs, who
knows =) Anyway we spent the next roughly 3 hours hanging out with Geordie,
Youth, Jaz, and other assorted vagabonds. I got my setlist signed by all
three, and I managed to have a good chat to each of them and mention
something they had done personally that I appreciated. 

 

Memories:

 

Youth - talking about Ayahusca, DMT, shamanism, druidry, Neil Finn from
Crowded House ("he's just so CATHOLIC"), BPF's tendonitis (elbows), Robert
Anton Wilson, Steven Wilson and other producers, electronic music, New
Zealand weed (great stuff - Geordie agreed but said he smokes hash), Paul
McCartney, trying to type in something for him on his iPhone.magic.

 

Geordie - early on in the night he walked up to the couches where some of us
fans were hanging out with Youth and Jaz, and with no greeting,
introduction, context or anything, he sits down right next to me and says
"it took until age 47 to find the love of my life - she licks my ass while
I'm drinking tea" -so fucking funny! I almost didn't want to write that but
the impression I got was that he gets a kick out of walking up to a bunch of
random megafans and blowing their minds with an outrageous, surreal comment.
Aah who knows, anyway I struggle to think of anything funnier I've ever
heard. I was trying to imagine what I'd text to Johnny to try to get him to
believe what Geordie just said but I wasn't going to sit there texting.
Anyway sharing a bottle of Jager with Geordie, passing it around, snorting
some kind of tobacco or snuff - magic. No one told me how funny Geordie is!
He was really animated.I told him I really dug his 2008 demos, asked him all
sorts like whether that story from back in the day about when he played with
Faith No More was true (him deleting the tapes and walking out saying
"you're too suburban") - can't remember what he said about that but he said
he likes Mike Patton, he said "that guy with dreadlocks skips bands quick",
talking about Mike Bordin I think.said he likes Jimmy Chamberlain's
drumming.

 

I had a chat with Jaz, he asked what I thought about the Death &
Resurrection Show documentary, we talked about NZ Politics (he reckons the
green party need to aspire to getting 50% of the vote).I got him and the
others to sign my set list.I mentioned that Jason the drummer did a good job
and he walked off stony faced =) Hell of an intense guy.

 

Anyway after a few amazingly fun and laid back hours it was all over,
however I was left with what I thought was a bit of a holy relic, which I
intended to share with Johnny -towards the end of the night my little sister
handed me something and said "hey this is one of Youth's joints - he dropped
it and didn't want it when I handed it to him!" - I kept it protected
overnight and only noticed about 24 hours later that it was a nicotine patch
rolled up into a cylinder. Rock n Roll!

 

I have the signed setlist which I had to untangle because it stuck to
itself, and lo and behold I have an even more holy relic - a ball of what I
think looks like Jaz-hair that it picked up while it was on the floor by
him! Oh the possibilities.of course I have started immediately on the occult
path, I don't know what a magickal relic of this nature is capable of, but
I'm sure that's a story for another day.

 

Anyway, I have decided to renounce the industry I was working in, move back
to my hometown and spiritual home Wellington, and become a druid. Although a
part of me is wondering whether I should try to find myself a girl like
Geordie's got.that's got to be a hell of a cup of tea!

 

Hahahaha!

 

Brendan

 

 

From: gathering-bounces at misera.net [mailto:gathering-bounces at misera.net] On
Behalf Of bongo
Sent: Saturday, 15 June 2013 5:23 p.m.
To: A list about all things Killing Joke, (the band!)
Subject: Re: [kj] Auckland gig: FYI

 

ok, tried to put some words together, not an unbiased rock critic review,
but how my night went..

 

 

me and jo (wife) drove down after work.. whangarei to auckland is a two hour
drive, so made it to the venue when the doors opened... had car issues, but
wont get into that - we made it there..

found jase and chars, then found a cheap piss shop and downed a few 8%ers..
found brendon & sister, talked shit outside for a bit and bumped into a few
other friends... the support band i found out was a new mix of old bands -
flotsam and jetsam of yesteryear, missed every note.. 

walked into the studio after support act finished. it was a bit packed, but
all our group made it up the front stage right without much struggle, tho it
was crowded we had space.. 

the few minutes before the band came on were filled with drug like ecstasy!
my plan was to stay with jo and co for most of the time, and thrash out a
bit for my fav songs..... as soon as requiem started tho - i was off!
glasses off, serious time... 

i have no idea of the setlist, but of course i knew every goddamn fucking
song and every fucking one was a fucking favourite that night!!! pssyche i
knew would be good - it was... but as i said before TDARS had me near
fainting/vomiting the most!!!  did i hold back? fuck no!  if you were up
front, you knew i was there.. rough? a bit... was i a dick? maybe... did i
care? no.  i kept an eye on the midget and watched myself around the guy in
the wheelchair (near stage side), but apart from that, i was not standing
still.

most others up front seemed pleased for the enthusiasm and when the guy up
front stated blindly elbowing anything that touched him, me and a tall
skinhead exchanged many sentences without words, and removed him from his
treasured position simply by 'dancing' HA!

i think there was a small fight, didn't see what started it but i was
shunted near them when they left the front... nothing major - just dumb.  

i'd really like to see a setlist to jog my memory... i have many memories,
but they are all disjointed.. bloodsport (not change - dont think they
played that??!), was joyous - geordie and youth facing off, playing off each
other, and jaz in between yelling and screaming and smiling!!

three old mates simply rocking out together, they were loving it and we were
loving it!

every song was great, altho i'm sure others complained of the sound. it was
a bit loud!

went to the sidelines after a few songs, no jase or brendon in sight, but
there was my wife, rockin by herself and looking at ease, comfortable in the
chaos, and a bit sexy!  stayed with her for about half of MINOG then
something else started and i had to go back into the middle, which was only
about 4m away..

 

all in all, my night was great, and Killing Joke done what i had hoped they
would.

 

never saw any of the band apart from onstage, youth was dj-ing an after
party somewhere, but we left after saying goodbyes to everyone... 

 

 

cheers.

 

 

(now if you want a review with real goods punctuation n shit, ask that
fucker who wore a soundgarden tshirt to a KJ gig!!!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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