Killing Joke’s 2013 U.S. Tour – REVIEW

This past weekend, we had the great pleasure of attending one of the three Chicago dates of the English post-punk legends, Killing Joke’s, 2013 U.S. tour. You can check out our review and some pictures from the show, after the break.

If there was any place for the post-punk heroes to bring their sound back to Chicago folk, it was the Empty Bottle. Not every great act that comes into town plays there, but nearly every band that comes through the Empty Bottle is kickass. It’s a haven for everything from the palatable and unknown to the heavy and weird. So it was an obvious choice when Killing Joke made plans for their tour to promote their Singles Collection release, which is packed with quintessential Killing Joke songs, as well as a few unreleased tracks like “Drug” from the Mortal Kombat soundtrack and a clip of frontman Jaz Coleman ranting and raving about his life philosophy and the current state of the world (nothing dis-similar to everything he writes for the band anyway). They played three shows at the Empty Bottle this last weekend, and according to attendees of all three KJ shows, the late Saturday show was the peak after two already incredible shows.

Kicking off the night was Chicago’s Czar. It’s always a damn treat when an opener kicks as much ass as the main act, and Czar did just this. With unrelenting heaviness, Czar lies somewhere near Mastodon, without the southern-rock, pick-as-fast-as-you-can tinge. They gain a post-metal and melodic flavor in moments, which then blasts into sections that bridge along the line of doom-metal without dying down on the song. They have a righteous and fitting tone, and china-symbol-cracking drum fills that shove the listener into each passage like a tyrant shoving victims into gulags (see “Vertical Mass Grave,” their latest, punishing release). They also did a cover of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” which was just as fucking heavy as that song really deserves to be, complete with breakdowns that yank the song into black metal territory. The singer/guitarist yelled out and admitted to the sacrilege of destroying a Beatles song, but the distorted obliteration was welcomed, so fuck the Beatles dogma and destroy the hits – I say.

The crowd was pumped for Czar, but when Killing Joke stepped out, years of fandom poured out onto the band. I’m not going to call these guys aging rockers or anything like that because the energy that the band sent back to the crowd was nothing short of all the youthful energy they had in their early days. Jaz Coleman is a maniac, marching like he is going into battle against the fascist bastards he sings about in “Corporate Elect,” and other politically charged songs like “Madness.” The night revolved around their earlier material, which is a sound that keeps much more to the punk roots that they were born from. Despite being labeled post-punk, these guys have crafted a sound that is all their own and only dawn the label because it’s impossible to pin down their raw energy to anything but punk, but it’s impossible to pin them to the genre at all – hence the totally uncreative label.

That earlier material that Killing Joke brought to the table included the driving and insane “Sun Goes Down,” before which Jaz claimed he wrote the song himself. They touched on some of their industrial work with tracks like “Whiteout” and the huge song “Asteroid.” They also touched on some of the best from their self-titled debut album– “The Wait,” “Wardance,” and “Requiem.”

Seeing, for the first time, a band that elicits a crowd’s energy like Killing Joke does, always begs the question: “What have I been doing without these guys?” The older die-hards were mixing in with the younger fans and rocking out, and then there is Jaz, staring into their eyes yelling “Zombies!” only to rile them up even more. People tore of their shirts and were jumping on each other’s backs, whipping their sweaty shirts around; much like one might imagine the first Killing Joke shows in the heart of London circa 1985.

And it’s not hard to imagine how the young British fans felt, especially with a sound that is so raw and identifiably British, though still fighting against that soft British sound – that progressive “rubbish” as they would have seen it. The repetitive, driving rhythms grab the crowd and guitar and bass lock in in wonky ways, forming a bitter mixture with riffs that might otherwise be easily swallowed. Jaz’s voice has an edge, but melody peaks through what might otherwise be yelling (especially with maturing voice). The early work that they played is confrontational but has a jovial side, like a pissed off anarchist who can’t help but make the best of a world they might hate.

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Information about the review…
Tour: Killing Joke’s 2013 U.S. Tour
Bands: Killing Joke, Czar (local opener)
Reviewer: Eric Witt
Date: April 27, 2013
Venue: The Empty Bottle in Chicago, IL

Did you enjoy the review? Have you gone to any date of this tour or do you plan on going to any? Let us know in the comments below!