Rough Trade is a band that only needs one invitation to have some fun and it comes in shed loads. Two sets over three hours and heavens knows just how many tracks were played but as the night rocked on they just got better and better which included the great “Hocus Pocus” track from Dutch band Focus.
There was a Status Quo Medley, I think a first-time ever “Don’t Stop” from Fleetwood Mac, “Gimme Some Lovin’” from Spencer Davis, the all-time classic “Johnny B. Goode”, “Dr Dr”, maybe another first-timer with “My Sharona”, the 1979 debut single by The Knack, “Smoke On The Water”, “Ace Of Spades”, “Paranoid”, “Summer of ‘69″ from Canadian Bryan Adams, The Cult’s “Lil’ Devil” plus a rare outing for a Queen track “Tie Your Mother Down”.
Of course that’s only a smattering of their huge selection as they played way past midnight and as the night came towards the end we ended up with several encores including “Whiskey In The Jar”, an excellent “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, a song written and performed by Bob Dylan for the soundtrack of the 1973 film Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid and they finished the night with a 1980 hit from Judas Priest, “Breaking The Law”.
Rough Trade aren’t booked to appear again this year, yet, however I have this funny feeling we shall be seeing them sooner rather than later.
It’s been 6 months since The Detonators first debuted at The Kings with their tremendous performance, would they be as good this time?
Quite simply this was an evening of a contrasting two sets. In their first set they had a torrid time with their sound settings which spoiled a really good selection of songs however The Detonators are still the only band to have performed Zodiac Mindwarp’s “Prime Mover” at The Kings.
Having resolved their sound problems the second set was altogether completely different and we had The Detonators back again in fine fettle with tracks such as “Purple Haze”, “Fool For Your Lovin’”, “Smoke On The Water”, “Jump”, “Rock ‘n’ Roll” and a superb Golden Earring “Radar Love”.
Obviously the band and its fans were relieved that it all came together plus you’ll not have to wait so long to see them again since they’re back on Saturday November 13th.
Crossfire are one of those bands always worth seeing. Not only do they give an excellent performance with a good and varied selection of classic rock covers, they are all very good musicians and allied to that they always get their sound engineering right.
A couple of sets on a very, very humid night made it extremely uncomfortable even with all the doors open nevertheless Crossfire gave their all with numbers from Deep Purple, The Fratellis, Rolling Stones, Jet, The Black Crowes, of course the obligatory Kings of Leon’s “Sex On Fire” and to complete the night shortly before midnight a great AC/DC “Whole Lotta Rosie”.
Crossfire’s next visitation is on Friday December 31st, New Year’s Eve.
Apologies dear reader for this belated post.
Now just who is/are Fujiyama? This is a fusion band, a fusion of The Graeme Stanton Band plus Kandis and what a fusion it is too performing not only some great classic tracks that no one else has done at The Kings but also several of Graeme’s own songs, consequently we had a night probably 90% of songs never done here before however it was the choice of some of the covers the regulars found so entertaining.
Try Bob Dylan’s “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You”. “The Tracks of My Tears” from The Miracles with Smokey Robinson, “The Ballad of John and Yoko”, “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” by Nancy, Sinatra, Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson”, “Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues” by American rock band Eels, The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry”, “Bad Moon Rising” from Creedence Clearwater Revival, Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right, Mama” probably better known by Elvis Presley and without doubt my favourite of the night, the 1967 Procul Harum classic “A Whiter Shade of Pale”.
But there’s more, “Suffragette City” from David Bowie, The Rolling Stones “Tumbling Dice”, “Green Onions” from Booker T. & the M.G.s and Graeme’s closing signature song, “Oh, I could hide ‘neath the wings Of the bluebird as she sings. The six o’clock alarm would never…”, are you there yet…”Daydream Believer” from The Monkees.
What a great finish to a fantastic night superbly sound-engineered by Balding Bloke, whatever you do missing them next time is not an option!
Where’s Ted? first visited The Kings at the beginning of January and had to cut their evening short owing to a very snowy night so it was with interest to see them perform their three sets the middle one of which would be an eight track Pink Floyd set.
Some classic covers were very well performed including “Tush”, “Rosalie”, “Wishing Well”, “Paranoid” and Led Zeps “Rock N Roll”, all great tracks, nice and tight and fairly well sound engineered. Naturally a lot of expectation would be on their Pink Floyd set which was excellent and included “Money” followed by “Brick In The Wall” and “Comfortably Numb”.
Unfortunately I must make a comment about playing such a long Floyd set at prime time on a Saturday night when many of the regulars are looking for poppy/dancey/well known tracks, and I do not mean that Pink Floyd tracks are not well known. It was very evident that many of the younger element left meanwhile us old ‘uns throughly enjoyed their performance but it did mean that the bar was a lot quieter for their third set…bonus…at least we could get to the bar:-)
Where’s Ted? are scheduled to return on Saturday November 6th.