King No One
Friday 9th December 2016
Boston Music Room, Tufnell Park, London, United Kingdom
On a busy Friday night in the city of London I traveled to The Boston Music Room which is situated alongside its bigger sister venue The Dome in Tufnell Park. I was attending the first headline London show by a male four-piece from York who go by the name of King No One.
This evening was part of the outfit’s second headline tour and they had decided to make the tour 14+ in terms of entry. Maybe it is because I am a bit older, but early on in the evening I did feel a bit out of place as it was a healthy mixture of school students and their parents. Being neither, I was curious to see how the night’s music would unfold.
As Mark Ronson’s ‘Daffodils’ from his ‘Uptown Special’ album played through the venue’s sound system we waited for the band’s arrival. The band’s lead vocalist and guitarist Zach Lount wore a long shiny silver shirt as the band kicked off their set and it was incredibly refreshing to see that the entire band have strong voices and sing together on a majority of their tracks.
Drummer James Basile provided a tribal drum sound for ‘Stay Close’ as Lount ran around the stage with his guitar and reminded me of a young Adam Ant. New single ‘Alcatraz’ has been well-received by the music press and fans alike and not only is it a live favourite but I think that King No One can potentially fill the music gap left by Noah and The Whale with material like this.
The only thing that bothered me about their performance was that even though guitarist Joe Martin and bassist Alex Townsley helped to craft the indie-pop sound, the dreaded pre-programmed Apple Mac reared its ugly head to provide the keyboards that could be heard but not seen. King No One are not alone in this practice and it is still done by established artists who really should know better.
Lount’s stage banter was friendly and humorous as he adopted ‘Excellent (ay)’ as his word of the evening before jumping onto the bass drum. ‘Never Wanna Let You Go’ was infectious pop at its best and proved that King No One would be a credible addition to the music programme at Reading & Leeds Festival 2017. With tight basslines and Alex Turner/Arctic Monkeys-esque being blended with confetti the room went crazy when the band’s frontman walked into the crowd for photos and donned a crown which was being worn by a girl in the crowd.
I was pleased to see people of both genders and various ages dancing throughout the evening and the reason for the band’s name is quite profound; everyone in society should be equal and no one should be king. Quite right lads. A short but powerful set from a band who can definitely keep a crowd’s attention. Watch out 2017… King No One are coming.
Glenn Sargeant
(Many thanks to Jenni at Wilful Publicity for help with this article)
