The band played Rebellion Punk Festival, Blackpool for the second year running on 2 August. After a wild performance on the Introducing stage in 2018 we were invited to play a bigger space this time around.
Of course, it was a different KMK lineup this year with Cat on lead vocals after the departure of Holly and we had a bunch of all-new tunes to unlashed on the Rebellion crowd on the Pavilion stage. The Pavilion’s a great place to play, situated behind corridors teeming with stall of punk rock merchandise and near the main entrance. It’s a bit of a hub so if a band on the Pavilion stage and pull in a few random punters passing by.
The Rebellion back stage crew were first class and after brilliant Irish rockers Audible Joes left the stage after a storming set, Kiss Me, Killer were up and running in now time at all. Nerves must’ve got to us a little as I completely forgot the intro to Trash, started again, and then it was all good.
We have a pretty different sound to many bands on the punk rock circuit, with bits of straight up ’77 punk, stateside and LA Punk, b-movie soundtracks, psychobilly, spy guitar, psychedelia, the odd bit of metal riffge, so I always wonder how we’ll go down if people were hoping for a spot of street punk or hardcore. But the audience seemed to lap us up.
There were a few blunders on second song Gentrification but we still got it across and then motored through the rest of the set with growing intensity. Even throwing in our old Nuns cover, Do You Want Me on My Knees too close.
Our merch table was thronged by the time we got round there with a ‘clearance deal’ on our previous batches of tees saw use take nearly £100. If we’d had a new CD, or even vinyl, to sell we’d have flogged a fair few units and made a bunch of new fans, including two guys from France.
We had more time this year to check out some of the other bands. We enjoyed watching fellow South West outfit The Blunders tearing up the Arena stage and Bristol’s Martyrials making their debut on the Introducing stage. And, yes, we were there to see our drummer AJ’s other band, The Menstrual Cramps, tearing it up on the Pavilion Stage, which saw singer Emilia tear into nazi bands after cider was thrown after someone threw cider at guitarist Cooper.
We met a guy from Arizona called IX, who has an online channel called B-side Talk and was keen to interview us. That was a fun experience! We’ll post a link when we have it.
All told it was a great experience and we really feel like pushing on and making Kiss Me, Killer 2.0 turn a few more heads.
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