I headed down to the Guildhall in Gloucester tonight to see The King Blues bring their Gospel Truth tour to the city and what a cracking night of entertainment it was with The King Blues playing a massive career spanning 25 song set and support coming from Kent grime-punk rockers Riskee And The Ridicule and local punk rockers Red Light Rebels.
Doors opened at 7.30pm tonight and 5minutes later openers Red Light Rebels took to the stage and when they took to the stage there was only a handful of people in the venue but that didn’t stop them from unleashing their infectious skate punk sounds as they played the likes of ‘Lazy Bones’, ‘Sick And Tired’, ‘Dominos’ and ‘Rats’ throughout their 30 minute set, towards the end of their set the room started to fill up but people stood towards the back of the room leaving a massive clear space in front of the stage which led to frontman Ryan jokingly shouting out to the crowd to watch out for each other in the mosh pit and pick each other up if anyone falls down before the band closed the set with the ever so infectious ‘Harrison’ which I’m sure gained the band a handful of fans tonight.
The main support band tonight were Kent based grime punk rockers Riskee And The Ridicule, a band who have been together since 2011 yet are still relatively unknown well until now as being invited out on tour with The King Blues is a massive opportunity for the band and luckily for them their sound is so close to that of The King Blues which makes them the perfect support band.
At 8.15pm Riskee And The Ridicule took to the stage and started jamming and seconds later frontman Scott Picking took to the stage and put on one of the best and unexpected performances I have seen in a long time, first of all Riskee And The Ridicule were new to me and I had no idea what to expect and during the first couple of minutes of their set I was unsure on them but then suddenly I was hooked firstly on how catchy and hooky their music is and secondly the sheer swagger and confident that oozes from frontman Scott Picking’s performance, he is quite a frontman who clearly knows how to work a crowd and tonight he had the whole of the Guildhall in the palm of his hands for his bands 30minute set.
Riskee And The Ridicule played a great mixture of songs tonight with the likes of ‘Jack Of All Trades’, ‘Molotov Cocktails’ and ‘Hipster’ going down well with the crowd but it was the super infectious ‘Roots’ which stood out the most as the song has a massive radio airplay feel about it and is seriously one of the most infectious songs I have heard in a long time and it is crazy to think that the song was originally released in 2014 yet I can see the song helping to take Riskee And The Ridicule places in the near future.
As mentioned above Scott Picking is an outstanding frontman and the rest of the band are equally as solid musicians especially Matt Verrell who did a solid job of smashing the hell out of his drums tonight.
The King Blues took to the stage at 9pm tonight and things opened with a solo performance from Itch as he did the solo spoken word track ‘What If Punk Never Happened’ and it sounded so raw and emotional on the live circuit and you could tell that each and every word coming out of Itch’s mouth was coming from the heart.
The rest of the band then joined Itch on stage as The King Blues embarked on a massive career spanning greatest hits set which saw them play the likes of ‘Let’s Hang The Landlord’, ‘Set The World On Fire’, ‘I Want You’, ‘The Streets Are Ours’ Poems And Songs’, ‘Heart Of A Lion’, ‘Bullingdon Boys’, ‘I Got Love’,’Mr Music Man’ and many others.
The whole set was a big surprise with the whole band playing for the majority but also Itch going solo for some songs such as the beautiful ‘Underneath This Lamppost Light’ and new track ‘Kick Out The Tory Cunts’ which is a song he wrote on the tour and is changing and perfecting every day to drum up political awareness after the shock announcement of the sudden election coming in June. Main support act Riskee And The Ridicule also stormed the stage and joined The King Blues for an epic performance of ‘My Boulder’.
Throughout the set there was a lot of banter between Itch and the crowd with Itch comparing the crowd to Bristol and members of the crowd chanting “Gloucester” over and over again and also mocking Itch for wearing some super baggy white trousers but he took it in his stride and laughed along whilst also reminding the crowd that his white trousers were actually cream trousers.
The show came to an end with a mammoth 4 song encore which consisted of ‘Nike Town’, ‘If I Had A Coin’, ‘Off With their Heads’ and the song everyone had been waiting for ‘Save The World, Get The Girl’ which finished the night off perfectly with a massive sing-a-long.
Overall tonight’s show was truly amazing value for money as you got 3 top bands for £13.50 which also included a massive 24 song set from the headliners The King Blues. Red Light Rebels did well opening up to what appeared to be a unmotivated crowd to start with, Riskee And The Ridicule were a massive surprise and have the potential to far on the back of this tour and The King Blues came and proved why they needed to reform and return to the music scene with the biggest tour of their career so far.
Red Light Rebels 4/5
Riskee And The Ridicule 5/5
The King Blues 5/5
Review By Trigger |
Ryan