By Sally Churchward. Photos: Ritta Boll.
The final To Kill a King concert took fans, friends and those who inhabit the blurred space between the two, on an almost cinematic journey from honey and sepia toned nostalgia through mourning and a sense of the endless passing of time to acceptance and joy of the moment.
It was always going to be an emotional evening – balanced delicately between a moment happening and passing – kind of a circle of life thing, but as much about the beginnings and endings in our own lives as the beginning and ending of life itself.
TKAK have just released a new album The King is Dead – but it’s to be the last.
They – or at least frontman Ralph Pellymounter and ‘emotional support musician’ JB – have been back on tour and tonight Ralph was on the stage at a venue he’d always wanted to play (the fantastic The Ivy House in Nunhead, London – the city’s first community owned pub, so he tells us with glee) but it’s to be his final TKAK outing. There was a bitter sweet sense of being united, but knowing that parting was imminent.
Of course, if you listen to the lyrics of almost any TKAK song, that sense of nostalgia for a moment, even as you’re in it, is written through like the letters inside a stick of rock eaten on a seaside holiday.
Ralph even breaks off mid song at one point, from Besides She Says, which contains the line “We’ve got time left, we’re only half dead,” to note ruefully that he was 22 when he wrote lyrics and is 41 now. It seems you’re never too young to mourn the ‘good old days’.
The tone of the evening was set from the outset with a fantastic support set from two fifths (siblings Matthew and Jools Lowe) of Keston Cobblers’ Club.
Their joyful, literally foot-stomping, folksy Americana had the feel of a movie soundtrack, with lyrics about visiting Graceland, raising a drink and past lovers, performed on an impressive array of instruments, with pitch-perfect harmonies.
Jools shared that the band cut their teeth alongside TKAK, and are old friends, with the bands supporting each other on various stages over the past decade and a half or so.
It was a warm, chatty set, that invited the audience in as friends and band mates – literally at one point when an audience member was invited to join them on stage to help out with a shaker – which drew us all into a cosy space where we were sharing something together, not just observing others performing.
The bitter sweet golden tones segued into the headline set. Ralph and JB (Jonathan Bradd) bounced onto the stage with huge grins and launched into No More Love Songs, which features an instantly recognisable ‘do-do-do’ hook, which it turns out is an utterly joyful sound and made it impossible not to grin along.
Ralph was quick to admit that the opening track was a blatant lie – the next song was, indeed, a love song, as were many more. Loves lost, friends moving on, it felt like we were being invited to draw up a chair and flick through a hefty album of a lifetime of Polaroid photos alongside Ralph, with a sense of capturing moments and trying to pin them down, as he sang of the ‘good old days’.
We joined Ralph as he took us backwards and forwards over his musical career, from songs that everyone knew the words to, to brand new album tracks (though everyone pretty much knew the words to them too – this was a sold out gig with many of his Patreon supporters buying tickets directly from Ralph himself, and loyal fans travelling from mainland Europe and even one from Texas to attend).
We found ourselves being served up a slice of apple pie Americana whilst lyrically pondering the end of the world – first at the hands of a First Testament God (Skin and Bones), then from Russian bombs (Cold Skin).
Spiralling – co-written with Ralph’s longtime friend, Dan Smith from Bastille – tackled the sense of loss when friends move on with their lives and you are happy for them but miss them.
But despite the sometimes downbeat topics this was an evening of warmth, delight and more.
The setlist and the night itself unfolded like the plot of a movie and we found ourselves moving from mourning loss of people, of our former selves, to accepting and celebrating change and revelling in the present – most blatantly in the song Reincarnation.
Ralph noted that although the band didn’t know the new album would be their last one when writing it, a number of the songs tackle themes of change and moving on – perhaps their collective unconscious leaking out.
The evening had a sense of reunion about it, and indeed that was played out for us for the final act – the encore – which kicked off with the aptly named Family.
To rapturous applause, Matthew and Jools from Keston Cobblers’ Club returned to the stage, joined by TKAK guitarist Grant McNeil – Ralph joked that he’d wanted to play at The Ivy House both because it’s his favourite venue and because Grant lives close by and he was hoping to pressure him to reunite on stage for this final gig.
The band stomped and clapped through a tubthumping version of Spiritual Dark Age, featuring the appropriate refrain ‘you’re not alone’. It felt as if we were all amongst friends.
And there was one more special guest to join the reunion – Dan Smith made his way through the crowd to join his friends to perform Choices, semi-recreating the viral video recorded in 2012 of TKAK, Bastille & Friends performing the song.
And in those final moments of the evening, and perhaps the TKAK journey, everything felt OK. The nostalgia had been overlaid with unbridled joy for the present. The excitement of the here and now and the sense that there are new horizons to delight in.
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