Kiss Me, Killer had a rocking time supporting US punk legends 88 Fingers Louie at the Exchange, on 4 August.
It was the band’s first outing on a bigger stage and as we’d honed our sound in elbow-crowded underground punk gigs I immediately felt like it was a bigger canvas to fill. How would our sound come across?
Although the gig was put together at short notice after a Norwich gig venue pulled out leaving 88 Fingers Louie and their UK touring partners, The Bitter-Town Hounds short of a date, a good number of people found out in time and KMK members managed to attract a few of their friends. Still, it was such a strong gig it was a shame the place wasn’t rammed. You missed out if you weren’t there!
After local act Layman’s Terms, Kiss Me, Killer hit the stage. First time we had full PA sound reinforcement and with hindsight I probably shoulda ‘gotta a bit more of me in my monitor’ as I could hear everyone else more than my Gordon Smith. Still, we did pretty well for most of the set, with opener Snakes making a strong statement and, judging from Cheri’s video clip, Cat’s Och Aye! must’ve come over with the riotousness it needs at the larger venue. Cat’s been getting into Open Mics again recently so hopefully we’ll have another Cat song in the set before too long.
There were some mystery tuning issues on our last couple of songs (and me forgetting a double chorus and ploughing into the verse riff… argh, fuckup), which kinda took the edge off the finale but, hey, as the sports cliché goes, ‘there were plenty of positives to take from the game.’ Next time we hit a bigger venue I know we’ll own that sucker.
Pictures of Kiss Me, Killer by Cheri, others by David KMK.
Next, The Bitter-Town Hounds took to the tall Exchange stage. A punk-metal crossover band, the sound blended straight-up old-school metal, thrash, grungier elements and proper rock vocals all served up with a fresh and original edge that really appealed to me. Great guys too. Definitely check The Bitter-Town Hounds out as I imagine they’d appeal to a wide cross section of music fans and could get much bigger before long.
88 Fingers Louie were, of course, the main event and AJ and Holly KMK are massive fans of the band and that flavor of punk rock. Holly danced out every notes, singing along to some of her favourite songs and the guys served up a flawless set. Holly also bagged a selfie with singer, Denis.
Afterwards, Nat and I did a bit of geeking by quizzing The Bitter-Town Hounds on their flawless wireless systems (Line6 Relay G10) and the glowing, sci-fi Kemper modeling amp that belonged to 88 Fingers’ Dan “Mr. Precision” Wleklinski and which I’d never seen outside dudes showing ‘em off on YouChoob in their front rooms. You just load up your patches and away you go. It’s the future, luddites.
Speaking of bigger stages the next gig on the calendar is London at the New Cross Inn on 20 August. We are going drill the set into our brains, hands and vocal chords. It’s going to be immense.
