Live Review

Funeral Party – King Tut’s, Glasgow

• 15th Jun 2010

An entertaining three band line up was the fare on offer at King Tut’s last night.

The Goldhawks from London opened the evening in some style. Their blue collar rock was filled with heavy guitar riffs interspersed with delicate keyboards. Singer Bobby Cook has a strong voice which showed especially well on the slower numbers and guitarist Jack Cook supplied some lively solos. This was a sharp, focused set and they left the stage in a howl of feedback to applause from the small crowd.

Funeral Party arrived in Glasgow from East Los Angeles via the Download festival. With little introduction or chat between songs they got straight into the music from the start. There were a few technical problems early on but these were soon remedied and the sound quality was excellent thereafter.

The band’s combination of punk and dance gives an interesting fusion sound, and the backing tracks, channelled from an iPod, added to their eclectic appeal. Vocalist Chad Elliott stalked the stage, his voice at times almost wistful yet also on occasions bursting into a proto punk scream to snarl lyrics with some passion and venom.

James Torres plays excellent lead guitar and also utilises many different effects from his variety of pedals to achieve a wide range of sounds. Added to Tim Madrid’s keyboards this gives an eclectic backing to tracks like Carwars from their current release, The Bootleg EP. The whole thing is anchored by Kimo Kauhola on bass and George Verdugo on drums, who manages to conjure a thunderous beat from a small kit.

The highlights of a very lively performance were Pushing It Back, which could be a punk track, and the current single, New York City Move To The Sound of LA, which closed the set. Its unusual introduction with glockenspiel and soft percussion soon gave way to angry lyrics and ferocious guitar. Torres took the final solo of the night perched precariously on top of the bass drum before leaping back to stage level.

The band exited to a fine reception from a now animated crowd, but unfortunately did not return for an encore.

The final band of the night, Remedy, came on after the headliners. This is a strange habit that King Tut’s has acquired of late, with local groups being given an opportunity to shine late in the night, rather than in the normal support band slot.

Remedy is a young band and they seemed to have brought their fan club along with them. They played some lively tracks which went down very well. Their mix of two guitars, keyboards and drums gives a treble heavy sound, but their female vocalist showed some real talent.

Overall this was an enjoyable evening’s music at one of my favourite venues. It was a pity that there wasn’t a better turnout to see the excellent Funeral Party.