[kj] [KJ[ 20/04/2012 – Trezzo Sull’Adda “Live” Club - Italy (Gig Report)

[Luca Signorelli]

> 20/04/2012 – Trezzo Sull’Adda “Live” Club (Gig Report)

>

> The only KJ northern Italian live date for 2012 was not only held 

> (again) in the Milan area – not exactly “typical” northern Italy – but 

> also at the “Live Club” of Trezzo sull’Adda, who gets my vote for 

> Italy’s most lugubrious and depressing live venue. Everything inside 

> look put together almost in random fashion, and the minimalist décor 

> just add to the feeling the band will play in the middle of nowhere. 

> But despite being (literally) in the middle of nowhere, the club 

> tonight gets filled very rapidly, as word of mouth about Killing Joke 

> return to sunny Italy has been quite strong in the last few weeks. 

> Thanks also to the great impression “MMXII”  (best KJ album in the 

> last 20 years, my humble opinion) has made here. Tonight the crowd is 

> a very nice mix of mature and very young, and the floor vibe is 

> definitely better than 3 years ago at Milan’s “Rolling Stone” (when 

> the “mature” side of the mix had been prevalent).

>

> And the boys are back, and it was very nice to see them again. They 

> don’t have aged aged in the last 3 years, and while Jaz is looking a 

> bit tired, he’s fiery and articulate as usual. I sense the tour has 

> been quite some work so far, with a lot of interesting human 

> interaction inside the band (which means yelling, fighting, arguing, 

> laughing and arguing again – the usual). Check Youth’s blog for more 

> inside stories about this, and I bet the next few entries will make 

> for some fun reading. There’s a lot of pressure put on the crew by the 

> band, but they’re all nice people, and the soundman (John?) did a 

> great job tonight. So, it looks like there’s all the right kind of 

> tension here, and very little of the boring, deadbeat shit (except, of 

> course, the bus transfers, which the band hates).  I anticipate a very 

> entertaining night, but I’m  bit worried about the setlist (which I 

> understand is being changed a bit every night). It is “MMXXII” heavy, 

> and most of the old stuff comes from the first album – and no “What’s 

> This For”! How will the crowd react.

>

> I shouldn’t have worried, because something akin to a miracle happens 

> – namely, the crowd reacts a lot more to the NEW stuff that they do 

> with the classics. It helps the news stuff is the strongest new 

> material the band has written in a long time. But if anyone had told 

> me I would have lived too see people getting apeshit crazy for the 

> material of the latest and 15th album of a band currently in its 32nd 

> year of career… but, ok, this is not “any band”, this is Killing Joke, 

> and my unshakable faith in their music has some very good reason. The 

> club PA is muddy as hell and be cursed laws regulating volumes on live 

> gigs, but – as I’ve mentioned before – the mix is very nice, and they 

> boys are putting a lot of energy into this show. They start slow 

> (“Requiem” is solemn, but hardly a scorcher) but oh boy, they really 

> warm up fast, and by the middle of the show – with “Chop Chop”, an  

> underrated classic, getting a blistering rendition – they’ve REALLY 

> shifted into full gear. The “Killing Joke effect” then kicks in – 

> everything start magically to connect and make sense, blood is pulsing 

> in your temples, head shaking, legs moving has they had a life by 

> themselves. And – again: it feels so RELEVANT, so much like a 

> soundtrack for our day and age. Some people think they were far ahead 

> of their times 30 years ago, and now their time has come, but my own 

> sentiment is far simpler – they’ve ALWAYS been in tune with their own 

> time. Particularly live, they’ve this marvelous ability to underscore 

> the mood of a age: scary and violent between 1979 and 1983, bombastic 

> and glittering during the 80’s, elusive and moody in the 90’s, 

> convulsive and confused during the “noughties”, and now, appropriately 

> apocalyptic and sombre, but at the same time channeling a heightened 

> mix anticipation and fear. Even “Asteroid”, a song I normally don’t 

> care much for,  felt different tonight, and I sang it with the crowd.

>

> However, while the new song made the definite core of tonight gig, it 

> must be said that the final handful of classics (Wait, Psyche, 

> Wardance and a brutal Pandemonium) put the evening close to a real 

> orgasmic frenzy. I was in Geneva in 1983 for the legendary “bomb 

> shelter concert” (the one from whom the final “torchbearers” bit of 

> the “Eighties” original video taken), and nothing will ever compare to 

> that night (maybe, who knows). But I must say that, with the possible 

> exception of Meshuggah in a good night, nothing still compares to 

> Killing Joke live (and even Meshuggah on a good night just approach KJ 

> level, they don't really get there).

>

> And from the satisfied faces of some very young crowd members at the 

> end of the gig, I must say it wasn’t just the self satisfied musing of 

> a old Killing Joke fan. Even if, while driving into the night back to 

> Turin, I had to admit to myself that to be a old Killing Joke fan 

> these days feels really good.

>

> LS