I’m caught in two minds over how to write about my experiences at The King Blues gig on Valentine’s Day. Initially I was tempted to do a review, but the more I thought about it the more it seems absurd. I go to one or two select gigs a year (if that) so my opinion on the quality of a show is probably as valued as Katie Hopkins opinions on anything. However I don’t want that to deter me from writing about it, because it really was an event that I feel compelled to write about.
I have to avoid falling into another trap as well. Just three or four days ago I furnished you with my thoughts on the bands return and their new material. I don’t want to slip into the realm of fan boy, boring you with my apparent obsession with a band and furthermore craving constant recognition from them. My last article attracted a tweet from Itch which I value, but not in the same way as perhaps a Bieleber would value a tweet from the pop prick himself. I valued it because it meant something I had written had been read and acknowledged by someone whom I have a great amount of respect for. I have to write this piece mindful that my purpose is to tell you why the gig was so great, not just another fawning piece of prose designed to get further attention from the band. I don’t write for attention…. I write because my girlfriend likes me to and I’ll do pretty much anything to make her happy. Oh, I enjoy it to.
Anyway, onto The King Blues comeback gig in the intimate setting of the Norwich Arts Centre. The venue couldn’t have been better for a comeback gig. It’s certainly an atmospheric place, the main auditorium is an old church and there’s a bar on the side of the building that features a mezzanine floor and less square footage than your average chain boozer. On the door I had no ticket, I merely had to give them my name and booking reference. I used to go and watch The League of Mentalmen, a local punk band near me mainly because I knew the drummer and latterly the whole band. Whenever I went it felt like a group of friends getting together, some to play the gig and the rest to watch. Usually when you go to a gig for a band like The King Blues you can feel a little detached – you turn up with your ticket and watch the guys perform behind a barrier, but this comeback was different. The girl on the door knew my name, just like a gig down my local.
This unique atmosphere was carried on as we went in the bar. I wanted to buy the new EP which I’d been told was going to be on sale, and I was delighted to find Itch stood there by the stall signing copies. Now I went to see Frank Turner in November and when I went to buy a T Shirt there was no Frank kicking about with a marker in his hand. It’s not a slur on him, but it is much kudos to Itch for being there and meeting his fans. Importantly it meant I was going to get to meet him.
Before I continue it is apparent to me that some of my friends may not have heard of the band. I want to stress this isn’t some small up and coming band we’re talking about. The King Blues have had several successful albums and have toured Europe. They sold out the Camden Roundhouse in 2011 after gaining a lot of radio airplay with the song Headbutt a year before; they’re a bloody good and bloody popular band. Zane Lowe has featured them on record of the week, Mike Davies played them extensively on the punk show. They’ve sold albums and they’ve played big venues. They’re arguably the best band you haven’t heard of.
I’ve wanted to meet the man behind the lyrics ever since 2008 when I first heard the album Save The World, Get The Girl. That album landed during a particularly painful time for me and I interpreted songs such as Hold On Tight and Out Of Luck in my own way. I identified with not categorising relationships in the same way as the characters on Friends, and even though the album was mainly about Itch’s experiences as a punk growing up it struck a chord in me. It shouldn’t have done, I had my nice cosy upbringing in rural Lincolnshire. I’d always like music that had a message to express though, it’s why I prefer punk and ska. Usually music of this genre has something to say or is an expression of anger and passion. I’d always been repelled by generic pop rubbish that we were force fed through popular mediums. For me that album epitomised what music should be all about.
Despite having all these thoughts in my conversational repertoire I didn’t exactly set a bonfire when my big moment came. I approached to buy my CD and he remarked what a well dressed man I was (not well fed which the subsequent photo suggests) so I told him I was a big fan, loved his music and then I asked for a selfie. Looking back it may have been a missed opportunity, but at least I have a picture to show for it, right? Maybe one day I’ll get to share a few drinks and discuss all the finer points of his thought provoking lyrics and skilfully constructed prose. Maybe one day I can crack open a can with him and discuss some of those great words he writes that roll off my tongue as if I’d written them myself. However for now I’ll settle for a photo, even one that makes me look like a 20 stone dairy farmer who has wandered into a gig by accident.
So it was intimate but it also fizzed with excitement as eager fans gathered to catch a glimpse of the band in action, something that hadn’t happened in four years. It felt exciting and the presence of the other band members milling about only added to friendliness of the event. I was concerned when I saw Jamie go into the Ladies toilets and not come out for fifteen minutes but closer inspection (by Fe, no me) the dressing room was just through the door before the toilets.
I confess that we stayed in the bar drinking and soaking in the atmosphere and missed the support acts. I feel a bit bad but I did buy one of their CD’s to make up for it morally. I did the same after watching Frank Turner, I invested in a Skinny Lister CD. It’s worth a punt by the way.
One of my favourite gig moments is always the entrance, that first chord and glimpse of the artist wandering on stage intent on supplying some top notch entertainment. The King Blues started in much the same way as they did at Camden in 2011. They have a great variety of styles and opened with the spoken word poem What If Punk Never Happened performed by Itch. Then the rest of the band came on and followed with the anarchic Lets Hang The Landlord. By the time we got Set The World on Fire it genuinely felt like the band had never been away.
I can’t deconstruct the entire set list because I got so carried away I can’t recall every song or which order they played them in. I do know that Mr Music Man made it in for us ‘old school mother feckers’ as well as a few tracks from the new EP. A personal favourite of mine is Poems and Songs which suits the laid back ukulele style that seeps into some of the albums.
The gig was littered with chatter from the always vocal front man as is customary at one of their shows. Halfway through the new track Taxi Driver Itch stopped the band and explained that ‘Taxi Driver, Oi, Oi, Oi’ were the most insightful lyrics he’d written and demanded (in a nice way) the crowd sing it back at them. We did.
It did play a lot like a ‘best of’ gig. We saw Headbutt, perhaps the most commercially acceptable tracks as well as pure protest songs such as We Are Fucking Angry and The Streets Are Ours. Every track was belted out with the passion of a band in their prime, not a band tentatively returning to the scene after a four year absence. Jamie thrashed around the stage with all the energy that Itch’s vocals suggest the band has, signalling not just a return to the stage but also proof that they are back on form.
Old school fans like me were also delighted to hear We Ain’t Ever Done from the first studio album, a track that they don’t often include in the live sets. Perhaps there was something symbolic in that, perhaps this band are never done. Whilst there is injustice, greed and capitalism in this world then there will be room for the boys to be performing the music they create that provokes you to look at the world through their eyes.
They ended with Keep The Faith, the last track from Long Live The Struggle. It felt like a very poignant moment as that track hadn’t been played live before. The album came out after their break up and listening to it at home during the 4 year hiatus often made me feel like a story had been partially written and then left. Performing it last at their comeback gig was very symbolic, and I got a chill down my spine to witness it after believing I never would.
Part way through the set Itch addressed the bands politics, and stated they were all about love and that they felt strongly that their political leanings were towards fairness and tolerance. Obviously they followed that with I Got Love, and you have to feel they really do. They have love in abundance, but not an airy fairy superficial love. They love their fans enough to mingle with them before a gig, meeting and shaking hands. They love their music enough to perform it with all the appetite and verve of an emerging band eager to make an impression. They have love for the homeless organising collections of tinned goods at the gig to go directly to a charity feeding those unfortunate enough to be sleeping rough. Most importantly they have a love and belief in their messages. They are anti fascist, anti capitalist and anti war. They will speak up for the little man and they believe in power to the people.
I tweeted afterwards it was the best gig I’d ever been to and I stand by that. It’s entirely possible it will be the best gig I ever go to, because for me it was as important as standing at the first Pistols gig back in 1976. We were witnessing the rebirth of an important band, a band with superb lyrics and great music to accompany it. We were witnessing the rebirth of a versatile and relevant band that demand to be heard.
As I left I felt invigorated and alive. Since they departed the scene in 2012 I’ve become a bit of a corporate climber, getting a couple of good jobs one after another and boasting a company car. I’d progressed but I think I’d lost an edge, I’ve lost that angry voice inside telling me things were not okay in the big wide world. I’d lost a small part of me. However walking away from that converted church on a back street in Norwich I felt the spark again. I could see the injustice of people sleeping rough against a backdrop of Google getting away with paying their taxes. I could feel the anger at bombing campaigns in Syria and innocent people falling victim to modern day greed. I remembered that freedom isn’t a coffee break with your boss. I remembered to be angry. Angry at Jeremy Hunt and David Cameron, angry at the Bedroom Tax and angry that in 2016 people are sleeping on the streets while our government plans to build a bridge with a garden over it across the River Thames. It made me angry that people in this country go hungry while supermarkets dodge taxes and falsify account. It made me realise that other people are angry too, at least three hundred or so spilling out onto the Norfolk backstreets.
So this isn’t a review of a gig nor is it a fawning love letter to a band I’m obsessed with. I’m not sure what it really is if I’m honest. I suppose it’s an aspiring writers way of expressing that he’s experienced something unique and memorable. It could be a call to arms. You see I-Tunes wouldn’t provide a stream of the new EP, possibly because the cover features a decapitated head that resembles our Prime Minister. The Daily Mail and it’s publishing siblings won’t post any articles about the band and their left wing politics. The mainstream establishment don’t want you to listen to the King Blues music nor what they have to say about the United Kingdom. Therefore perhaps I’m writing this to urge you to share some of their new music through social media. Perhaps I want you to listen to what they have to say.
Whatever it is I know Valentine’s Day 2016 will be something that I remember until such a time that my faculties leave me and I start putting my slippers in the fridge. Maybe even then you’ll find me humming The Streets Are Ours whilst I do it.
Long Live The King Blues.