Killing Joke & Turbowolf

I have been waiting for this gig for over thirty years. Despite being a fan since first hearing Killing Joke in the mid-eighties, through a combination of bad planning and lack of money on my part and illness leading to a postponed gig on their part, I have never managed to see the Joke live. This is my first Gathering and expectations are high.

First up are Bristolian rockers TURBOWOLF. Normally, a four piece, they are without bassist Lianna Lee Davies for this tour. Despite that – and my increasing antipathy towards bass free bands - Chris Georgiadis (vox and synths), Andy Ghosh (guitar) and Blake Davies (drums) still manage to make a cracking noise and rock like muthas. This is essentially an old school rawk band playing an old school rawk show.

Playing stage right and side on to the audience, Davies hits his drums hard and fast, with a style that brings to mind Motorhead’s late Philthy Animal Taylor. Ghosh’s playing blends sleazy 80s LA metal, scuzzy 60s Detroit garage with some tasty artrock/no wave touches. Resplendent in spangly jacket and sporting a moustache Zappa would have been proud of Georgiadis is the star of the show. Between songs, there are moments when I am not sure if he is taking the piss or taking the piss out of himself – I suspect the latter - and the vocals have a touch too much Phil (LA Guns) Lewis or Klaus (Scorpions) Meine for my tastes but this is far better - and far more fun - than it has any right to be.

And so to KILLING JOKE. I am more excited by the prospect of this show than I have been about a gig for a long, long time but there is some trepidation too. Can Killing Joke live up to my expectations? Well, I need not have worried. Celebrating their fortieth anniversary (albeit that there have been line-up changes and extended breaks in that time), the band takes the sounds of punk, metal, dub, psyche, the Middle East and more to create something that is an all-encompassing, otherworldly carnival of sound.

The set includes songs from most but not all of their history. If I am disappointed by anything in the set, it is the lack of anything at all from the Democracy LP but, hey, including the encore, we get eighteen songs. Picking highlights is near impossible but opener Unspeakable, instrumental Bloodsport and raging takes on Loose Cannon and Asteroid warrant special mention. And then there is closing song Pandemonium – my favourite KJ song if I had to pick one – which is as strange, moving, uplifting and cathartic as I could wish for and makes a perfect end to what must rank as one of the gigs of the year.