It's a Friday night in the Black Country. An old converted Steel Mill owned by K.K.Downing of the legendary (and local) Judas Priest is now host to a reasonably decent size capacity music venue in the back streets of Wolverhampton. Tonight's act, Killing Joke, was on a stretch of warm-up shows ahead of their sold-out show at the Royal Albert Hall.
Those expecting to hear classics such as 'Love Like Blood' and 'Eighties' tonight might be slightly disappointed if they did not take the time to read the tour poster, as the band would be performing both of their first albums in their entirety.
Before we get to that, New Zealand's export of Punk rockers, Desperate Measures takes to the stage to warm up the crowd. It took only seconds before I and many others came to the eureka moment of the lead guitarist being an uncanny look-a-like of one of the Ramones (Mostly Marky with a little mix of Johnny). Those who were fans of Sham 69 back in the day might have a little trip down memory lane due to their similar sound and political messages.
And now for tonight's main spectacle. The Mill was filled with the sound of Jocelyn Pook's 'Masked Ball', which as a massive fan of the band Ghost made me (and a few others who pointed out "Ghost use this as their walk-on music!") very very happy.
We start off with the entirety of the debut self-titled album, which rips into the prominent synth of 'Requiem' and the rightfully titled call to arms banger 'Wardance'.
While this was promoted as an 'intimate warm-up show', the theatrics of Jaz Coleman remains the same as that of a larger show. Sporting his signature boiler suit and donning red face paint, Coleman is not a man of many words between songs, but his performance, whilst some may describe it as very 'possessed like', speaks volumes in itself.
The night followed with 'What's THIS For...!' in its entirety, including crowd favourite 'Follow the Leaders', which caused the most movement in the crowd during the whole night.
The band concluded with an encore of four songs spanning their repertoire, climaxing with another fan favourite 'Pssyche'. Overall, a great throwback evening for long term fans and a fun history lesson of the band for those less knowledgeable.
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