Guest Review: The King Blues
The King Blues appearance at Soundclash was billed as an instore, but I got the feeling that it was always intended to be a performance as opposed to just a PR visit & record signing for the latest album Punk and Poetry. It was a clever and subversive way of bucking the city’s performance licensing laws.
With music firmly entrenched in the anti-establishment camp, The King Blues speak loudly and clearly to those with a social conscience. The 100 or so people gathered at one of the county’s best independent record stores had made that connection, and crammed themselves into the shop to see Itch standing on the counter, singing and reciting songs old and new.
‘Set The World in Fire’ – from the new album – was greeted with similar enthusiasm to the anthemic poem to women the world over ’5 Bottles of Shampoo’. Whilst this is featured on the new album, it has been a live classic for some time. On the new album it has been set to music, but in truth, this detracts from the impact of the poem when delivered as it was written, in the spoken word format. No matter, today it was delivered in the spoken form and remained as brilliant as ever.
After five songs it was all done and everyone filed out for some fresh air with broad smiles, having had the chance to see the band so close and performing totally raw but in excellent fashion. It wasn’t only the fans that were smiling, as the band seemed to genuinely enjoy the experience too.
Versant continues to impress. After a successful release, here comes a treat for fans. Check out some trendy tees at http://www.versantmusic.com/store/t-shirt-one/