King's X Dates

[Yesspaz]

http://www.kingsxonline.com/tour.html

[Rick and Roll]

10/8 in NJ and 11/17 in Baltimore......looking like a reality.

I've seen them in Baltimore at thet venue (the Thunderdome). Hopefully it will be cold. In July a few years back after the show, the roaches outside were so big they shook me down for some cash.

[Yesspaz]

My show is at The Nick on 9/25. Same place I've seen them the last two times. They said on their website that they'll be playing four new songs to tease the new album. Sweet. The Nick is one of those little club/bars that has the occasional bigger group, but mostly locals. Dada played there, as did RJDio. KX is amazing live. Should be fun. This time I hope they play something from Bulbous, which they didn't touch last two tours (preferrably "When You're Scared" or "Smudge," but I know they like to play "Marsh Mellow Fields" live, and that'll be killer with the trading vocals). I also hope they play "Ono," which is my fav KX song. Guaranteed: "Dogman," "Groove Machine," "We Were Born To Be Loved," and "Sometime."

[Bob Lentil]

Originally posted by Yesspaz
This time I hope they play something from Bulbous, which they didn't touch last two tours (preferrably "When You're Scared" or "Smudge," but I know they like to play "Marsh Mellow Fields" live, and that'll be killer with the trading vocals).

I'm hoping for some Bulbous material as well. The first time I saw them, they played Marsh Mellow Field and She's Gone Away. Unfortunately, they haven't touched the album since.

[Rick and Roll]

stuff on KX in another thread...I posted some old set lists.

To me, Bulbous started the decline....had to say it.

Will you be seeing them Bob?

(when I mentioned the dates to my friend, he said "aah the never ending tour")

[Yesspaz]

Yeah, it's like they tour for three months, take one off, repeat. It seems like the tour indefinitely. Don't know how Ty made Jelly Jam 2.

[progdirjim(Admin)]

will someone send these jokers to San Diego? I've told my friend who lives in Irvine to go to the Santa Ana show, as he's 20 minutes close - I turned him onto King's X IV (S/T) last time we skiied together, and he liked them a lot. But Santa Ana is too far to go for a show for me...

[Rick and Roll]

since they play all of the time....

they have been to Baltimore three times, and I sent an email a couple of years back asking if they would include Baltimore. No luck. Maybe someone else would fare better.

[Bob Lentil]

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
Will you be seeing them Bob?

Yeah, I'll probably see them in at the Pirate's Cove in Cleveland. I've never been there before. I'm hoping for a full-sized pirate ship, parrots, eye-patches, hooks, peg-legs, buried treasure, and wenches.

[Yesspaz]

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
To me, Bulbous started the decline....had to say it.

{wicked laugh} I put a song from Bulbous on the next BRock, just for you RnR! It's not the best one on the disc, but if they play anything from that album on this tour, it'll most likely be "Marsh Mellow Field," so that's the one I picked. Great vocal work and a solid guitar solo.

[Rick and Roll]

Spaz - I like Marsh Mellow field....favorite from the record ("oh won't you take me")

Bob - the wenches are probably with the band (maybe not Doug).

[mossy]

Jim, see my Dada thread and link to the Coach House. They're coming to San Juan Capistrano..is that near you? Sharing the bill with other bands however...

I didn't check the Kings X website link posted on this thread so if this is old news, it's old news.

[Bob Lentil]

They just kicked off the tour. Here's the new setlist for those interested:

Groove Machine
Believe
I Can't Help It
Dogman
Mr. Wilson
Cupid
Freedom (new song)
Julia
If (new song)
Screamer
Open Mind (new song)
Finished
Charlie Sheen
Down
Allison (new song)
Sometime
Visions
We Were Born to be Loved
Summerland

There's a lot of stuff they haven't been playing lately in here, even Bulbous material. (That's your favorite album isn't it Rick?) I'm very excited, as I haven't seen 10 out of 18 of these performed live. Unfortunately, I still have a while until they get to my area. I see Spaz's show is coming up in a couple days though. Let us know how it goes.

[Rick and Roll]

Originally posted by Bob Lentil
They just kicked off the tour.

unless i catch them in Jersey...

[Yesspaz]

Saturday Night at 12:40 am (Sunday morning) at The Nick, B'Ham, AL.



Groove Machine (Tape Head)
Believe (Manic Moonlight)
I Can't Help It (Faith Hope Love)
Dogman (Dogman)
Mr. Wilson (Faith Hope Love)
Cupid (Tape Head)
Freedom (new)
Julia (Please Come Home... Mr. Bulbous)
If (new)
Screamer (Black Like Sunday)
Open My Eyes (new)
Finished (Black Like Sunday)
Charlie Sheen (Please Come Home... Mr. Bulbous)
Allison (new)
Down (Black Like Sunday)
Sometime (Ear Candy)
Visions (Out of the Silent Planet)
We Were Born to be Loved (Faith Hope Love)
Junior's Gone Wild *spontaneous partial* (Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey)
Walter Bela Farkas (Tape Head)
Mission (Gretchen Goes to Nebraska)
Over My Head (Gretchen Goes to Nebraska)
Summerland (Gretchen Goes to Nebraska)



ALBUM COUNT:
Out of the Silent Planet - 1
Gretchen Goes to Nebraska - 3 (2 unplanned)
Faith Hope Love - 3
King's X 4 - 0 (sorry Jim)
Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey - 0.5
Dogman - 1
Ear Candy - 1
Tape Head - 3 (including WBFarkas)
Please Come Home... Mr. Bulbous - 2
Manic Moonlight - 1
Black Like Sunday - 2
untitle new album - 5


Next tour I want Ono, Junior's Gone Wild, Pleiades, Fade, Vegetable, and Smudge.


Peace out.

[Yesspaz]

Saw King's X last night. Good show. It started off on a bad note, but ended terrifically. Let me explian.

Doug was having problems with his rig. The band was on stage for at least 10 minutes before they got started. Ty was telling stories, teasing the double live album, interacting with the crowd, etc. Doug eventually said "let's just play," but you could tell he wasn't happy. They opened with their standard opener, "Groove Machine." The crowd was singing along heroically: "Welcome to the Groove Machine. Welcome to the Groove!" While Ty and Doug held out the last chord, Jerry started the metronomic beats of "Believe." Halfway through the song, Doug just stopped playing and was mad. He said, "I'm sorry, but I can't play like this. Ya'll please give me about 10 minutes to fix this." Sure. Ty told more stories. Someone asked him if they were playing "Cigarettes" and he said not this tour. As soon as they got Doug's rig fixed, Ty's mic went out. They ran the cord that had the short in it and replaced it. Still out. It was the snake, so they moved it to a different fader. Perfect. Played "Believe," "I Can't Help It," and "Dogman." "I Can't Help It" was phenomenal. It was the first time I'd seen them play it. "Dogman," of course, was a crowd favorite and really kicked gluteus maximus. I was going crazy. Yeah, they play it every tour, but it's like "And You and I" - they have to play it every tour, and no one ever complains. Ty then went into the opening arpeggios of "Mr. Wilson." This was a highlight for me, as it's one of my favorite songs on my favorite KX album. Besides, that main riff is just devastating. After that was over, the sound-man told the band he'd lost Jerry's vocal, so they re-snaked that. Nope, it was the cord. Changed cord. But Jerry then said he'd lost himself in his monitor. So they fixed that. Doug was slightly miffed still, but it was fixed all in about five minutes. Doug said, "Let's do Cupid." This was a fun song. It's just a nice little groove with good guitar work. Doug mentioned the new studio work and they played "Freedom." It was similar to Bulbous vocally, with Ty and Doug trading leads, but musically reminded me of a cross between Faith Hope Love and Black Like Sunday (trust me).

They lost Jerry's vocal, again. They patched it, again. Then they did "Julia." Yay! Something from Bulbous. At this point you could tell that the crowd was mostly people who forgot about King's X after Dogman, because not many knew "Julia." It's a risky song to do live because it is very slow at first (think opening of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" tempo). The folks who didn't know it were a little distracted, but right after the second chorus, just before the big bridge (fans know what I mean), someone on the other side of the room yell "Break Stuff!" BAM! He timed his yell so perfectly that if you were counting 1, 2, 3, where three is the first note of the bridge, "break" and "stuff" were one and two: "Break Stuff BAM." One guy, after the song, said, "Damn, that rocked. I gotta buy that album." Next up was a new song Doug called "If." I yelled "Pink Floyd cover?" and about six people laughed. The rest had no idea what I was talking about. Doug laughed on stage, said, "no" and started. Good song in 6/4 or 6/8. After a guitar switch and a tuning check, in which Ty asked the audience "Is that low enough for you?" they did "Screamer." It appears that "Screamer" will be a permanant setlist feature with "Dogman," "Sometime," and "We Were Born to be Loved." This song just slays audiences. Since this was my third time to see them do this song, instead of watching the band I scanned the audience's reaction during the song, assuming many of them didn't know it. If you've never heard "Screamer" and you see them perform it live, not knowing what's coming, well... let's just say some people looked a little freaked. Just imagine an innocent's face after:

Dow dow da-dow Oh,
Dow dow da-dow No...
Dow dow da-dow REAAAAAAAAAAHOOWWWW!

Doug had a huge delay/echo on his mic for this song too. Whew! I cannot praise this song live enough. Next was yet another Jerry vocal problem. While the roadies were attempting to figure out the problem, again, even the chirpy Ty was getting exasperated. Doug said he didn't believe in the devil but there was a demon in the wiring. Ty then stretched out his hand and said "begone short cord!" During this lull I yelled out "We need a Jelly Jam tour" and Ty looked at me and said "we do need a Jelly Jam tour." I hollered "John's [Myung] just got finished with Yes and Rod [MortegenstienerwhateverIalwaysgetitwrong] ain't doing anything." Ty said, "We're doing some shows after I get through this tour. Oh, but it'll probably only be East Coast because that's where those guys are." Someone to my left said "Boo, come to the South." I said "At least play Atlanta." Ty went, "Yeah, I'll try to get us to Atlanta. That might be doable." (If this happens Roger.Lee, I'll buy supper, you lend me a bed??? ). Ok, problem fixed TOTALLY, last time, YAY! Let's play the new song "Open My Eyes." Solid rocker with proggy chops. "Finished" was next. This is one of my favorite Ty solos, because he get's to switch up styles so that it's like two solos back to back. Next was a song I really like but didn't translate as well live, again because not many knew it and the audience didn't vibe with it. Ty started the arpeggios and I recognized it immediatly as "Charlie Sheen." It was cool that just before the second chorus came in with Ty singing "Kill the king," The band did a really tight stop so that the dozen of us that knew Bulbous well were heard to sing "Kill the king" by ourselves, the band laughed, and one beat later they came in. Tight. The fifth and final new song "Allison." I was kind of dreading this song because my ex is named Allison. Yuck. But I ended up loving it because the chorus was "Allison, that's just like a hurricane." Ha! Take that, villainess!


...continued below, reach field limit

[Yesspaz]

Next was the one song that I just don't understand being played. This is where they lost a lot of the audience (they got them back with the following song). "Down" is just not a live song. It's the slowest thing out of 10 albums and was just not energetic at all, which you need at 2:10 am. But for those of us singing along, it was fun - just not fun to try and pay the band respect when others are chit-chatting while they wait for the home-stretch.

This is a digression from the review, but King's X is always an interesting dichotomy of characters. Doug, who renounced Christianity, had a little speech in "Believe" about believing in yourself and not worrying about what people in the Church say about you. Then they play the anti-abortion anthem "Mr. Wilson," written by Ty, a devout evangelical Christian. I got the impression last night that each band member probably picks two or three songs that they want to play that the others cannot veto. The reason I get this feeling is that Doug seemed to be just playing his part on "Mr. Wilson" which was probably Ty's pick. Doug was jamming on "Mr. Wilson," but you could tell that it wasn't his idea to play that song this tour, just as Ty was on auto-pilot during "Down." I could tell that "Down" was a Doug pick. Anyone who follows KX knows that Doug is a tortured man, and "Down" is one of his biograhical songs (most of his are). He looked like he'd just walked out of a good therapy session when the song ended. Ty didn't seem very into it-more like he was playing his part for Doug. Always interesting to hear Doug sing, quite passionately I might add, some of the lyrics he wrote as a Christian, such as last tour when he sang "I read the story said You died/I turned the page-You were alive/with hope and love and mostly faith/one day I'll see You face face/Everywhere I go I see You." And he sang it like he meant it. When I see King's X, there's always a whole other context for me to watch, as I watch Doug's expressions when he sings some of those older songs. Anyway, back to the review.


After "Down," the band was really enjoying themselves and went into the home-stretch. They freaking jammed on "Sometime." For the remainder of the show KX went went back into their prog roots. People went crazy at the opening chords of "Visions." BAM! Straight into their standard closer, the mind-blowing "We Were Born to be Loved." Folks, if you want to see a band play a very rhythmically complex song, singing all the while, and play it Tight, go see King's X, because when they do this song, people just stand in awe and wonder. After "We Were Born to be Loved," Doug said "we usually go off-stage and come back for a formal encore, but this nice club-there's no where to go, so we'll just keep playing, ok?" We cheered.

Here is my hero moment:
Ty had to change guitars so I took that moment of silence to yell "Junior's Gone Wild." Ty started playing it! Doug grinned and said "hold up." He started trying to remember it. Ty and Jerry started it again, and they freaking played it!!! I was going crazy because I love that song. Doug was trying to remember the words and did ok for the first verse, but he forgot the chords or words or something at the chorus and stopped. He said, "Dudes, we gotta work that up. That was fun. We recorded that for the Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure soundtrack and just left it there. We've never played it live. Ya'll want to do that?" Ty and Jerry said "heck yeah." Doug continued, "I'll bet you when we get back here we'll have that worked up [note: actually Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey]. Two guys right at the stage turned around, "yeah, you're my hero" and giving me high-fives (they were sooo drunk).

Now the band was really having fun. Doug said, "Since we had so many problems earlier, let's keep playing. Requests?" Well, you know what happened. I'm screaming "Ono" and I hear "Cigarettes," "Complain," "Goldilox," "Pleiades" (that would've ruled), and dozens more. Someone yelled "anything you want to play" so Ty started "Walter Bela Farkas." What nonsense, but what fun. Doug heard "Mission," so they did that. Doug said "Here's another one we've not done in years, so it might be rough." They played it flawlessly, but slightly slow because they were trying to remember it as they went. So killer. We're still yelling songs. I thought they'd be playing for a while, becuase they were having serious fun. Doug said, "You wanna hear "Over My Head" or "Goldilox"? I shouted "Both!" but "Over My Head" won. Toward the end of the song, the band completely dropped out, Doug stepped around the monitors and on top of the woofers and without his mic he lead the whole audience in singing the chorus four times a-capella. At the end of the chorus, he hit his mic again with "Just like yesterday!" BAM. Of course, now we want "Goldilox." But they are getting tired, so Doug said "Let's do "Summerland" and get outta here. We'll be at the merch table signing stuff and taking pictures. Sorry about all the technical stuff, but you guys have been incredible and encouraging and we appreciate it." "Summerland" was solid as usual, and that's all she wrote. It was 2:20am, I didn't have a camera, I had to be at church this morning at 9:30, and I didn't want to wait in line, so I came on home, got a shower (I was sweaty and smelled like 638 cigarettes) and got to bed about 3:10. Got up, went to church, came home, and wrote this review. Ahh.

[Bob Lentil]

Thanks for taking the time to write such a wholly excellent and thorough review, a very interesting and enjoyable read.

[Bob Lentil]

I caught King's X last night in Pittsburgh, and they were excellent as always. I'd probably rank this as the 2nd best KX show I've attended, because I liked the song selection, and the audio quality was the best I've heard.

The played at the Rex Theatre, which was pretty nice. It's an old movie theatre, so it had theatre seating which was a pleasant change from the typical general admission show, as it created a buffer between the attendees. It's nice to be able to see a band without bumping and grinding with every drunk in your proximity. I got a spot in the second row in front of Doug, which was a change, as I usually park in front of Ty.

They played a bunch of stuff I haven't heard live before and all of it was good:

Julia - I loved the heavy part on this song, definitely very cool to see live.
Charlie Sheen - My favorite song from Bulbous.
Cupid - One of my favorite songs from Tapehead
Goldilox - One of the classic KX songs. I'm glad I finally got to see it live.
Mission - Great song from a great album.
Mr. Wilson - My favorite song from FHL.
I Can't Help It - Another great song from a great album.

All the material was performed very well except for a few screwups (Ty flubbed the beginning of The Difference, the opening song). They opened with an acoustic set and then broke into heavier material, including three new songs. They omitted Freedom (the fourth "new" song) from this show for some reason. Conversely, I do applaud the omission of Moanjam, which is probably my least favorite song on FHL, and they've performed it at every other show I've attended. I guess I wouldn't mind seeing Moanjam again, but it's not high on my priority list, especially when they could be performing other material.

I met the guys after the show and got my copies of Live All Over the Place, Massive Grooves. . ., and The Jelly Jam 2 signed. Doug commented on how I looked uncomfortable everytime he sang to me during the show, which is probably true. I was trying my best not to look uncomfortable. I guess I must have failed.

If you get a chance to see these guys, definitely take it. You won't regret it.

[Rick and Roll]

I'm looking forward to the show on Wed. Anyone else besides Bob and Spaz and myself ever seen them? Anyone?

Thanks Bob and Spaz for the notes....I'm sure I'll be happy with whatever they do. I know I won't see the tunes I saw back in '93 and '94. And Moanjam can go I think......but after a 17-min "Vegetable" last time, I can't wait for the topper!