The Assemblians gather at aKINGgdom

12 Jun 2009

Last Wednesday night saw aKING release their latest album Against All Odds at the one and only Assembly. aKING is not short of devotees and we were greeted by not one but two queues one of which stretched down Harrington Street for quiet some distance.

We were just in time to catch support band Thieve who also happen to hail from the Bellville planes. Most of these Bellville originated bands seem to be incredibly supportative of one another, not surprising when so many of the band members belong to at least a few bands. But it is always quite heartening to see; there never seems to be any overt competiveness or jealousy between bands. Both Pierre Greef and Francois Van Coke from Die Heuwels Fantasties and Fokof and Van Coke respectively helped out Laudo with some of the singing on a couple of the songs, including the great “In the Twilight”.

Some brotherly love between Hennie and Francois

Thieve

UnfortunatlyThieve at the moment doesn't really do it for me, there doesn't really seem to be enough distinction of sound and look between them and the myriad of similar sounding bands that are around these days. But it's still early days for them and hopefully they will and grow and develop their sound and style a little more.

Being a fan of the fairly merit-debated new aKING album I was keen to see how the songs would translate live and to be honest in comparison to songs off debut album Dutch Courage which the band also played Wednesday night they didn't fair to well. One can't help but notice that the older songs seem to have more resonance and inspire more crowd interaction. But I guess this is fairly un-surprising as it usually takes a little while for new songs to get the same response and treatment from band and crowd when live. And that said there were a few new tracks played that were great live. One of them being “Facebrick Constellations” which is a truly country-style rockabilly inspiring get your feet moving kind of song.

aKING

Laudo on accoustic

Laudo is blessed with such a richly deep and unique voice and it was displayed to its best ability when he preformed “Know your Bones” solo and with acoustic guitar. I would think it hard for any women and perhaps a few men to not to go a little week at the knees when hearing that song live.

Long live the KING.

http://www.myspace.com/akingband

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