King Charles (photo: Jenny Dowdell)
Monday 12th April at the Hoxton Bar and kitchen I stood amongst the crowd, in the sold out venue gazing expectantly over a field of heads towards the stage. The room was absolutely buzzing with excitement and as King Charles entered, Charles sporting a marvelous pair of black sequin trousers over a polka dot leotard and a black jacket with pompoms on the shoulders; the room erupted with whoops and cheers, which fell respectfully to silence as King Charles began playing tunefully on his guitar.
The first song Tomorrows Fool was a melodic and moving introduction to the show, with beautiful guitar plucking and heart melting vocals King Charles sung out; “I will be a fool today I’m scared of what tomorrow brings.” This was empowered by vocal harmonies from the rest of the band. The audience gazed up instantly infatuated, it was clear from the start that King Charles is not only a great musician and performer but a man with something important to say, a man with stories to tell, and his stories are ones which are clearly craved by his audience. The song came to an end with a stunning guitar solo, and over the whoops and cheers of his audience Charles said “Good Evening, I just wanted to remind everyone I still have a sensitive side because now we’re going to Rock ‘n’ Roll.” They proceeded to do exactly that as the band launched in to their song Mr. Flick, with super fast guitar, synths and percussion over the ever so catchy melody sung out by “woooo oooh wooo oooh oooh oooh.” The audience couldn’t help but sing along. Charles combined tuneful singing with shouted out spoken word in this song giving serious amounts of vigor to his powerful lyrics.
The night continued in this manor, the sound growing bigger in each song along with the performance, which grew ever more energetic. Lust Love and a new song Brightest Lights were the two that really stood out for me. Lust Love was obviously a clear favorite for the audience who shouted out for it in enlivened expectation. You can’t dispute that it is a stunningly conjured song. Brightest Lights was hugely moving, much darker than his other songs beginning with an ambient musical introduction, the soon grew in to a much bigger and darker thing altogether as the band thundered it out across the room Charles’s arms outstretched like a bird, he sung this song with enormous amounts of passion, stomping in a head banging frenzy, ending with the loud and perfectly engineered crashing of symbols.
The band completed the night with an encore and exited the stage to the roar of a very happy audience. King Charles are touring up and down to UK in the up and coming few months, I strongly recommend seeing them play.
Words: Jenny Dowdell