White Skies are considerably more than just the local support for the evening. These are experienced musicians in their own right, and their second album, “Shouting At The Hurricane”, has represented a real step forward.
Mick White prowls the stage with the confidence you would expect, but, crucially, the songs match. “If This Is It (Get Ready)” is impressive, while the title track comes with an invitation to sing along. It is the sort of thing White Skies do rather well.
“Money To Burn” is introduced as a Saturday night drinking song, which makes it appropriately placed, and “What Do You Know About Love” heads more towards the AOR territory you might have expected them to occupy throughout. There is enough bite elsewhere, though, to make them a more rounded proposition.
They reckon there is plenty coming next year. On this evidence, keeping an eye on White Skies would be a sensible move. Their best days might well be ahead of them.
If you were expecting Kira Mac to arrive and play the Southern rock sort of thing they were making their name with a few years ago, then a rethink is required.
“We’ve had a shit two years,” Kira explains, describing an album recorded in America that has been shelved, lawsuits and all manner of other difficulties. What has emerged is a new line-up, a new look and, most strikingly, a much tougher sound.
“We’re gonna play you some songs that no one’s ever heard,” she announces. That is a brave approach at the best of times, and it takes the half-hour set a little while to settle. Once it does, however, there is no mistaking how much heavier this incarnation has become.
One song, possibly called “In Between”, is thunderous. Another has apparently had “82 different versions and 82 different names” and might now be called “Over”. A couple of other titles escape MV, for which apologies, but the impression they leave is rather clearer: Kira Mac have changed considerably.
There is a new album due next year, with a tour to follow, and these songs will probably need a little time to become familiar. For now, this is an interesting, unexpected glimpse of a band working out where it goes next. Kira Mac, mark two, is going to be worth watching.
Back in 2016, when I reviewed Inglorious’ debut album on these very pages, I suggested that whether they made it or not, they were unlikely to die wondering. If sheer scale and size counted for anything, then we would be making trips to stadiums to see them within a few years.
“Inglorious, then. Coming to a stadium near you by about 2026,” I said.
Well, that never happened.
Instead, here we are at KK’s, probably the best venue for rock ’n’ roll in the country, watching the original line-up reunite for one night only to play that debut album in full.
If you imagined that meant running through the record in order and chucking a couple of extras on at the end, however, then think again. This feels like a proper gig.
More than that, it feels like a comeback.
“Breakaway” immediately finds Nathan James doing what he was born to do: fronting a rock ’n’ roll band. Never mind the cruise ships and goodness knows where else he has been singing. Put him here, with these musicians and these songs, and it all makes sense.
“High Flying Gypsy” is fine, but then comes a simple “here’s a song for you” and Whitesnake’s “Fool For Your Loving”. If ever there was a man who seemed destined to take up Dame David’s mantle, surely it was this one.
What is interesting, too, is hearing this line-up tackle later material such as “Taking The Blame”. There is groove and swagger here, the sort that comes from the way these particular musicians play together. Andreas Eriksson and Billy Taylor’s guitars, Colin Parkinson’s bass and Phil Beaver’s drums give James quite the platform.
“Burn” is a reminder of just how well he handles the Deep Purple catalogue, something MV witnessed when he joined Glenn Hughes onstage a few years back. Yet the original material holds its own in this company.
A change of bass brings a change of pace for “Bleed For You”, while “Girl Got A Gun” broods and lurks, showing another side to a band that can do rather more than simply turn everything up and let its singer loose.
James talks about their “very unique sound”, and the versatility extends to Beaver and Taylor swapping instruments for “Wake”, with Taylor taking the drum stool.
“Warning” comes with a reminder of its appearance on Sky Arts, before “You’re Mine” provides one of the evening’s standout moments. A fan favourite that has barely been played live, it was written with Whitesnake’s Joel Hoekstra. Hearing it tonight, the overriding thought is a familiar one: what a voice James has.
“Unaware”, meanwhile, was the first song he ever wrote lyrics for, he tells us. Among all the big gestures and vocal power, those little details help explain what this evening means to the people onstage.
There is a change of jacket before “Girl Goodbye”, Toto’s classic delivered in a distinctly Inglorious fashion. They have always had the ability to take songs with formidable pedigrees and make them fit comfortably alongside their own, and this is another example.
The title track follows, played by Inglorious as only Inglorious can, before proceedings pause for the raffle.
Yes, the raffle.
“It’s like a working men’s club,” jokes James, and there is something rather wonderful about interrupting all this rock-star business to draw the winning tickets.
He is soon off for a walk around the venue during “Holy Water”, which was arguably the highlight of the debut and makes a strong claim to being the highlight tonight. “I Don’t Need Your Loving” then underlines how much quality exists beyond the album being celebrated.
Naturally, they return for an encore. That is what rock stars do, and these boys are rock stars.
“Until I Die” finishes it. The first song on the album, played last tonight. As it should be.
The stadiums never happened in the way some of us thought they might. Watching this, though, feels every bit as special as discovering them back in 2016, when MV caught them two or three times and became convinced that something was happening.
These are five blokes who know how good they are. They know they can play, they know they can write, and they know there is something about the way they perform these songs together that nobody else quite replicates.
Whatever the one-night-only billing says, it is difficult to watch them take their bows and believe that this should end here. It has felt too much like a proper band for that.
The music playing as they leave offers a knowing nod: Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town”.
Indeed.
And my goodness, what a statement this was.
