The Killing Joke: Music By Old Men, For Old Men.
Last night I went to see The Killing Joke. This was a last-minute thing, born about because my brother had tickets and his friend was hospitalised with gallstones.
As usual with reunion tours, the audience consisted vastly of middle-aged white men, although I was pleasantly surprised by the number of women - not enough for there to be a queue for the ladies though. Last night's performance was exclusively their first two albums; they're working through the rest of their back catalogue on consecutive weekends. Overall their show was pretty interesting - they still have a lot of energy after all these years, and large video screens either side of the stage for people like me who are too short to actually see the band showing video collages for each song ( including some striking footage of female Asian soldiers practising their drills which was clearly from a propaganda film but was very reminiscent of an MGM musical).
Of course, there are occasionally ridiculous moments at such gigs. Like the singer announcing
- That 9/11 was an inside job.
-That the British response to the mortgage crisis and people losing their houses was going to be "build[ing] prison camps, like the Americans."
- That the presence of NATO bases on British soil meant that we are an occupied nation, because NATO = America, and we don't need them now that we're in the EU.
I don't know about you, but now that a middle-aged musician wearing clown make-up has told me these things, I definitely believe them.
Never before has "shut up and sing" been more appropriate.
As usual with reunion tours, the audience consisted vastly of middle-aged white men, although I was pleasantly surprised by the number of women - not enough for there to be a queue for the ladies though. Last night's performance was exclusively their first two albums; they're working through the rest of their back catalogue on consecutive weekends. Overall their show was pretty interesting - they still have a lot of energy after all these years, and large video screens either side of the stage for people like me who are too short to actually see the band showing video collages for each song ( including some striking footage of female Asian soldiers practising their drills which was clearly from a propaganda film but was very reminiscent of an MGM musical).
Of course, there are occasionally ridiculous moments at such gigs. Like the singer announcing
- That 9/11 was an inside job.
-That the British response to the mortgage crisis and people losing their houses was going to be "build[ing] prison camps, like the Americans."
- That the presence of NATO bases on British soil meant that we are an occupied nation, because NATO = America, and we don't need them now that we're in the EU.
I don't know about you, but now that a middle-aged musician wearing clown make-up has told me these things, I definitely believe them.
Never before has "shut up and sing" been more appropriate.