Saw King's X live over the weekend

[mikah912]

What an absolute treat.

They eschew most of the 80s/90s "hits" for deeper (and less vocally demanding) tracks these days, but they still bring a remarkable amount of tightness, musicality and intensity for a trio of guys in their 60s and 70s with no backing tracks or fancy light shows or whatever.

Ty Tabor is just a stupidly talented guitar player, and it just remains humbling that he crushes night after night with a Goldtop Les Paul into a super cheap solid-state Orange head into an Orange 4x12 close miced with an SM57 and....pretty much nothing else. He switched on a vibe pedal for a couple of songs, but otherwise just used pickup and volume knob changes for a good range of tones for the entire show. He didn't even switch to the clean channel for clean songs!

That live tone was ridiculous too, BTW. Midrange-rich, detailed and full of musical-sounding feedback and sustain pretty much any time he let a note ring out. Sounded like a perfect fusion of Brian May and your favorite modded Marshall cranked.

I'm not running out to buy an Orange CR120 head because I know I won't sound anywhere near as good, but it does put into perspective the incessant back-and-forth about tone hunting, "tube realism" and whatever other minutiae we get consumed with daily.....

 

[Achilles]

Awesome!!!

Seen them a half dozen times through the years. First time was back east across the street from Fenway Park when they still had all their Gretchen hair. I'd picked up that album not having a clue what to expect and was BLOWN AWAY!!!! Had to see if they were for real and they just happened to be touring and came to Boston about a month later.

Again, BLOWN AWAY. The tones, the chops, the harmonies, their stage presence, the overall vibe, EVERYTHING!

 

[mikah912]

Awesome!!!

Seen them a half dozen times through the years. First time was back east across the street from Fenway Park when they still had all their Gretchen hair. I'd picked up that album not having a clue what to expect and was BLOWN AWAY!!!! Had to see if they were for real and they just happened to be touring and came to Boston about a month later.

Again, BLOWN AWAY. The tones, the chops, the harmonies, their stage presence, the overall vibe, EVERYTHING!

Yeah, it was a bit of a full circle moment for me because I went with a friend who also came with me to see them 25 years ago at the now-defunct Cotton Club in Atlanta (and we saw Mr. Bungle at the same venue that year and also saw them again a month ago). Even crazier is that the friend was at Death's door a few months ago before we got to go to these shows.

My feelings were all aflutter both times both with the actual shows and my own realizations of midlife mortality and such.

 

[Achilles]

25 years ago

I think I saw the same tour out here at the San Diego club Brick by Brick!
A LOT less hair if I remember right.

 

[DrewJD82]

Hell yeah, man!!

That’s a band I’d happily go see every time they came around but they never come around!

 

[Achilles]

I'd picked up that album not having a clue what to expect.

Quick follow-up on this. In the late months of 1989 one of the guitar rags dedicated an issue to Best of the 80s and asked a bunch of artists to name their faves in a number of categories.

Under the 'your personal #1 album of the decade' section both Gene Simmons and someone else (might have been Chris DeGarmo) chose this weirdly named album by this band I'd never heard of before. Ran out and got it and it took all of about 30 seconds of track 1 to get 100% pulled in and by the end of it I'd fallen head over heels in love.

Still think Out of the Silent Planet and Gretchen are their two most fully realized albums as far as songs and flow go.

 

[TSJMajesty]

Saw them at the now-a-parking-lot Hammerjacks way back when, and yeah, they were the shit!