Most bands, more than four decades into their careers, have gone somewhat soft around the ages, a touch complacent, going through the motions on cruise control. Killing Joke aren’t like most bands. The angry young men from the late ’70s are now even angrier old men.
Still featuring the four original members that cut their first EP, Turn To Red, back in 1979, Killing Joke were in no mood for compromise as they returned to Newcastle as part of their Honour The Fire Tour.
Always being somewhat unpredictable and never complying with convention, Killing Joke pretty much wrong footed everyone by opening with their biggest hit “Love Like Blood,” a song they are not afraid from dropping entirely from their set and one nobody was expecting.
Few bands have been quite so influential across so many genres while retaining their credibility throughout. With their tentacles spreading well beyond their Post Punk roots across to Metal, Gothic, Punk, Indie, Grunge and Dance, they pushed boundaries to breaking point.
As Jaz Coleman staggered around the stage like a man possessed, spitting venom and ire at the state of the world as “Wardance,” “Total Invasion,” “This World Hell,” “Money Is Not Our God” and “I Am The Virus,” all seeming even more apt during these rather strange and scary times. As if to reinforce his stance, “Lord Of Chaos” from their brand-new EP was suitably acerbic aided and abetted by the pulverising, driving riff from Chester-le Street born Geordie.
The hypnotic, pulsing beat of “Mathematics Of Chaos” had the crowd in an almost trance like state, moving as one indivisible mass as Coleman played the deranged ringmaster.
With the suitably titled “Pandemonium” bringing the show to an apocalyptic end, Killing Joke left the crowd an exhausted, dystopian wreck. Job done.
Review and Photos By Mick Burgess
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