KILLING JOKE PERFORM KILLING JOKE & WHAT’S THIS FOR?
LONDON FORUM 03/10/08
Firstly, sorry I had no camera pass and missed support band Treponem Pal but I was very stoked to find myself getting into this very special show at the last second, grabbing a beer and weaving my way through the immensely packed Forum and depositing myself down on the barrier for the duration of this set. Reuniting the original line-up of Jaz Coleman, Geordie, Youth and Paul Ferguson the group were going to perform their first two albums in their entirety, Killing Joke (1980) and What’s This For (1981). Despite having had these albums for years, even I was too young to have caught them the first time round and this was a rare treat for many. Having said this the audience was one that looked like they were survivors, battled scarred and up for mayhem. Let’s put it this way there were no kids in Blink 182 shirts here tonight, these were the real punks.
We were entertained by heavy dub courtesy of DJ Alex Patterson from The Orb until at 9.30 the band came on. First impressions were that the ever eccentric Youth looked like he had strode straight off the golf course where he had just been whacking Jaz round the head with a nine iron. I had a certain amount of tension about all this, after all they had been advertising CD’s of the show on sale directly after it, would there be room for mistakes or would this be a highly rehearsed perverted pantomime?
I need not have worried as the second the keyboard pulsed into the unmistakable call of ‘Requiem’ we were off and so were they. Never has something as slow and gnarly sounded like such a portent of doom and it was echoed by 2100 people singing along. The only thing about band’s playing albums is that you know exactly what is coming next, not that we were complaining, after all the debut Killing Joke does start with two of their best loved anthems and ‘Wardance’ lived up to its intent and got bodies moving at its clarion call. We maybe over Thatcher’s Britain but shit has hardly changed and this was as apt as ever. With visuals thrown out from two side projection screens this was an overload in more ways than one.
This is not an album all about hits though, in fact it goes distinctly weird and illustrates the band’s infatuation with the occult as the austere and magickal sounding keyboards of ‘Tomorrows World’ sparkle in, ceremoniously offering a sacrifice bolstered by the incoming football stadium chants from the vocals. Jaz had been fairly quiet between songs and looked as though he was gearing up for a manic phase, this came as he twitched about to ‘Bloodsport’ looking like he was being electrocuted. This perfectly accentuated the bizarre, quirky nature of the number. After this he did gabble something about Michael Meacher and the fact that 9:11 was an inside job and got a cheer from the crowd, who would no doubt have cheered whatever he said.
The group seemed tight and really confident together, Geordie and Youth on either side of Coleman seemed to trade off each other as they mischievously went into ‘Complication’ forgoing a certain number to later. At the end of the album we were treated to ‘Eighties’ which was a real crowd pleaser and a welcome addition to the set.
‘What’s This For?’ really is an album that defined the term tribal music in my opinion and it was always a bit of an odd one. ‘The Fall Of Because’ opened the gates as the sinister guitar shred twisted and struck at us like a bloody spike. The tone was made all the heavier, Jaz informed us that prison camps were coming to our green and not so pleasant land and ‘Tension’ twitched nervously in with a paranoid intent. ‘Unspeakable’ saw strobes going crazy and limbs twitching as the audience reacted to the chilling ritual that was being performed on stage, an exorcism may well be needed after this (and in fact will come the day after when Killing Joke perform Pandemonium).
The most well known song of the album ‘Follow The Leaders’ came as somewhat light relief and I am pretty sure running orders had been switched about a bit here as after this we got a track left off the first album, one that needs no introduction being ‘The Wait’, the greatest song ever turned to shit by a bunch of heavy metal posers!
A minutes silence was called to former member Paul Raven and was adhered to by the crowd. Following this we were rewarded by my favourite song ever ‘Love Like Blood’, ‘Change’ and a surprise ‘Are You Receiving’ all of which had me joining in the spastic twitching in the pit and loving every second of it. I will be very surprised if this is not the gig of the year for me and it is certainly one I won’t forget in a hurry.
Pete Woods
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