Killing Joke

Blog time again... i've been away for a couple weeks on holiday, hence the lack of posts. My trip away included a visit to the Isle of Wight festival. This event can be rather too mainstream for my tastes, but due to it being held in my home town I usually attend. And for me there is often something worthwhile going on in amongst the more obvious pop acts.

This year's best performance for me was by Killing Joke... a band whose catalogue i've dipped my toe into over the years without finding much out about them. I remember being intruiged by their 'love like blood' single back in the 80's (when I was still a child!) and a few years later had a cassette copy of their 2nd album 'What's THIS for...!' . In the early 90's I was seduced by their 'Exorcism' single and subsequent 'Pandemonium' album after hearing that Jaz Coleman insisted on recording his vocals in the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid in Egypt! Very rock'n'roll and something that surely goes a long way to creating a cult aura.

Anyway... nothing prepared me for their absolutely blinding performance on the Sunday night in the Big Top. Dark, heavy and hypnotic with inter-song banter about war, UFO's and the dead. It appeared to scare many of the unprepared festival go-ers, but the performance was right up my street! I've always been strongly attracted to the darker side of life and the Joke soundtracked where my head was at on Sunday night perfectly. Go see them soon if you can. Here's a picture that hopefully conveys the shamanistic vibe perfectly. Vocalist Jaz Coleman triumphantly holds aloft some kind of talismanic device that rather disturbingly contains a portion of deceased bassist Paul Raven's ashes...