Houston heavy rockers King’s X – described by bassist/vocalist Dug Pinnick in a recent nysmusic.com interview as “somewhere between the Beatles and Black Sabbath and anything else you can imagine in between, with some kind of gospel vocals” – have a long history of New York State shows stretching back to 1987 at the Cat Club in Manhattan (before the band was signed), through countless dates throughout NY in the late 80s, 90s (including a legendary date at Woodstock ’94), into the 00s through the present day. Recently, the band played a pair of New York State shows during a late August-early September northeastern run of tour dates, including this gig at Putnam Place in downtown Saratoga Springs, NY.
Although King’s X have continued to play New York State in recent decades – most often in the NYC metropolitan area – there has been a strange 25-year drought of King’s X shows in New York’s Capital Region. Strange because, back in the day, the band regularly played the Albany-Saratoga region, starting with a 1989 gig at the long-departed Saratoga Winners in Latham on the tour for their landmark second record Gretchen Goes to Nebraska (followed less than two months later with a gig warming up 80s rock hero Billy Squier at the similarly long-gone Clifton Park Arena), and played regular gigs at Saratoga Winners or Northern Lights in Clifton Park on virtually every following tour through the Manic Moonlight era in 2001.
On September 4, Saratoga Springs finally saw the Return of the Kings – and it was a mighty return. Putnam Place – a mid-sized club with a large, open floor and good sight-lines to the stage from every corner of the venue – was filled up for the long-overdue blast of melodic, memorable heaviness that only Doug, Ty and Jerry can bring.
New Jersey rockers Colossal Street Jam, who are opening several shows on the King’s X string of Northeast gigs, played an uplifting, energetic set of 70s-fried hard rock to start the night – a really good band, I didn’t know any of the originals, but they included a cover of Sugarloaf’s “Green Eyed Lady” and got a great reaction for an unknown opening group. A band to watch for sure.
King’s X is a one of a kind band in many ways – no one sounds like them, they sound like no one you can point to, amazing players all, songs to die for which laudably mix memorable, melodic and flat-out heavy, Dug’s bass tone is like no other, Jerry Gaskill is an astounding rhythmic whirlwind on the kit and Ty Tabor’s leads are a thing of melodic glory. And all three players – and this is the original lineup, the same trio that uncorked first record Out of the Silent Planet back in 1988 – are astoundingly great vocalists.
The gig covered the band’s entire discography, a great song mix from the debut up through newest record, 2022’s Three Sides of One. Of course, the show-opener was the anthemic stomp of “Groove Machine” – the band’s traditional opening song for many years now, culled from the 1998 record Tape Head – straight into a propulsive “The World Around Me” from the self-titled 1992 record, followed by the pounding hammer that is “Pillow” (crowd participation audible, seemingly every voice there roaring along, as was the case for many songs), plus the more reflective “Cigarettes”, both from the 1994 landmark opus Dogman. Ty extended guitar solos on several songs to jaw-dropping effect. “Fade” – a fairly deep track, also from Tape Head, vocals shared by Dug and Ty (Dug sang lead on the first 4) was a great choice. You forget how excellent some of these album tracks are, and it killed.
There were minor sound issues at first, which Dug addressed with the soundman from the stage, but the band sounded great, if maybe not as rib-rattlingly loud as you would have liked. And this band are so great, even ~40 years into their adventure, and they still look cool as fish: Jerry’s hair a cool white mop, Ty’s hair long again after a few years of looking like an accountant with a guitar, and Dug seemingly ageless: the day before, the man had turned 76 years old (and many happy birthdays were shouted from the crowd), and he looks, sings and plays like a guy maybe half that age.
The setlist pulled from across the catalog, mixing songs from the newest record (“All God’s Children”, sung by Ty, with wry lyrics about fundamentalism, and the blues-slathered “Nothing but the Truth” were played mid-set), which sandwiched “Alright” from previous record XV, this one a great album track but an even more outstanding, head-bobbing heavy rocker live – a killer deep track, so glad they played it. Oddly, the melodic anthem “Summerland” was the only track played from second record Gretchen…, considered by many to be a standout in their discography. Most of the band’s 15 records were covered, but for early 00s LPs Please Come Home…Mr. Bulbous and Manic Moonlight, 2008’s Ogre Tones and, sadly, the 1996 final Atlantic Records release, Ear Candy. They can’t play them all.
“Black Like Sunday” was a cool choice from the fairly underheralded 2003 record of the same name, followed by a couple more Three Sides tracks (“Let It Rain” and an excellent rendition of “Festival”), before hitting the home stretch of the regular set: “Pray” (another fairly deep track from XV), vintage banger “In the New Age” (cool choice – song one, side one from the debut record) and the set-closing, winding, false-ending steamhammer that is “We Were Born to Be Loved” (from the 1990 Faith Hope Love release). Awesome.
Of course, there were encores, lest the howling faithful revolt, and arguably their biggest “hit”, Ty’s “It’s Love” (also from Faith Hope…) started it off (Tabor extending the solo rippingly), followed by a pulverizing “Dogman”, before Dug turned his microphone towards the audience and Saratoga Springs sang, roared, hollered and bellowed every single last word of the 1988 classic, the hit that should’ve been, the first-album fan favorite that has become a highlight of every KX show: “Goldilox”. And it was truly a goosebumps-summoning, life-affirming, communal thing of beauty.
Complaints? Hard to think of any. The sound and volume was a tad less than ideal as noted above, perhaps. Of course any longtime fan could debate setlist choices, more Gretchen or something from Ear Candy could have been subbed in for “Pray” or “Nothing but the Truth”. It was truly odd to see a KX set without the crowd-pleasing standards “Over My Head” or “Black Flag”. Personally, I always want to hear “King” and “Visions” because, damn, I love those tunes, and I’d have rather heard “Shoes” or “Complain” from Dogman instead of the morose “Cigarettes” but: let us not complain (so much easier), quibble or split hairs. It was fantastic. And they must return to the Capital District SOON. No more quarter-century waits, damn it. Every tour from now on, please. All hail King’s X.
King’s X setlist: Groove Machine, The World Around Me, Pillow, Cigarettes, Fade, All God’s Children, Alright, Nothing but the Truth, Summerland, Black Like Sunday, Let It Rain, Festival, Pray, In the New Age, We Were Born to Be Loved
Encore: It’s Love, Dogman, Goldilox
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