Spanning three decades, the Killing Joke story is a fascinating, bizarre and frequently turbulent one, but all that juicy info is for another time and place. Tonight is about KJ’ s biggest UK headline show – the first time in a long, long time (save for a couple of low-key European gigs last summer) that the original four members have shared a stage.
Touring to promote recent album ‘Absolute Dissent’ (a highlight of 2010’s heavy rock calendar), KJ are on fine form this evening, and to the audience’s delight the past 30 years seem to have done little to dampen the band’s energy and anger, with ever-vocal frontman Jaz Coleman laying into, well, everything (bankers being a prime and popular target) during his intriguing soliloquies between songs. But this gig is far from just a platform for Coleman to vent his (considerable) wrath: KJ’s distinctive and much-copied brand of industrial punk – characterised by Geordie’s gloriously sludgy guitar riffs and Coleman’s growling vocals, complementing a vibe from the heavier side of new-wave – has rarely sounded so tight.
As expected, highlights include classics like the thrashy pulse of ‘The Wait’, anthemic singalong ‘Requiem’ and theatrical show opener ‘Love Like Blood’, but also several strong tracks from the new album – title track ‘ Absolute Dissent’ and ‘In Excelsis’, whose contemporary broader tones prove no less beguiling than established KJ material.
Although Killing Joke’s legacy is sometimes unfairly – ignorantly – summed up purely by referencing the stadium names that have covered them (Metallica, Foo Fighters, etc), tonight’s performance demonstrates that KJ are entirely their own band, and as relevant today as they’ve ever been.
Words by Tristan Parker
