I had the pleasure of seeing our friend Ralph’s band To Kill A King play live at the legendary Brudenell Social Club on Wednesday this week. I have known and followed the progress of the band since its inception because of our family’s connection to Ralph’s but this was the first time I got to hear the boys play live – and they certainly delivered. Some bands are better in the studio (REM) some bands are better live (Hope and Social) and some bands are brilliant at both and To Kill A King are one of those bands I’m pleased to say.
Live the band has a tremendous amount of energy – I was standing at the left of the stage and the keyboard player, although not the most physical of instruments was bopping around for the whole night, grabbing an improvised shaker made from a bottle of pop and as a result encouraging us to get on our feet too. Ralph, who’s the front man, switched guitars more than once (broke a string on his electric!) and also played piano (which I didn’t know he did). There was not a dud song in the lean but powerful set. I particularly enjoyed new song Funeral and also the cover of Lana Del Rey’s Video Games (which I think is better than the original). The only thing that spoilt the experience was the loud chatter in the quieter parts of the songs – it was annoying that people were having such shouty conversations throughout the set. Maybe I’m getting old but it did get in the way somewhat of my enjoyment. Ralph has a powerful singing voice and a number of the songs make use of the device of suddenly stopping all the instruments and focusing just on the vocal – it was in these parts that the loud chatter spoilt it somewhat.
I really wish the boys well – they have a strong set of songs, superb lyrics, very tight performances musically and a great rapport with the crowd – they deserve to go far.
Below are two recordings I made (you can hear the chatter in the background!) for you to enjoy. If you like what you hear, please go and like their Facebook page – as the more fans they get, the more brilliant music they can release.
Bryony Taylor 