The enduring appeal of both Killing Joke and Jaz Coleman stem, at least in part, from the same source – the endless fascination that revolves around a band founded on ritual and organised along the lines of a collective. As such, despite the fact that various members, and especially Jaz, have spoken often and at length on the topic of the band that became their life, there is still an aura of mystique around Killing Joke that few others have managed to achieve or maintain, especially in an era where everything is neatly catalogued online and pored over by overzealous fans.
I approached Jaz’s Unspeakable tour, then, with a mixture of interest and apprehension. Interest, because Jaz is an articulate and endlessly fascinating speaker. Apprehension, because I’d hate to see the curtain lifted too far on a band whose power stems from their unpredictability.
I needn’t have worried. Jaz is canny enough to understand the line between brutal honesty and outright disclosure, and tonight treads that fine line well. Compered by Napalm Death’s Shane Embury, whose unenviable task it is to try to keep Jaz on topic, the evening is split into two halves – the first being a sort of free-flowing monologue from Jaz, covering the period roughly from mid-90s to 2003; and the second a Q&A with the audience.
And it’s a fascinating night. Set up on a bare stage in the intimate confines of Leicester’s O2 Academy 2, the only concession to aesthetic is a tiny projector screen which, to be fair, might as well not have been there so small and fuzzy is the image. That aside, all eyes are on Jaz and Shane; and Jaz, clad in black and hiding those piercing eyes behind dark glasses, holds the attention well. Free flowing it may be, but Jaz doesn’t ramble. His digressions only serve to add depth to the detail and Shane rarely gets a chance to slip a question in – at least not in the first half. Over the course of about fifty minutes, we hear about Prague (a happier time, when the whole band more or less ended up there); the recording of the 2003 self-titled album (still one of Jaz’s favourites); and the disastrous world tour that followed, which saw a broke Killing Joke traipsing around the world relying on the nightly riders for sustenance once the per diems ran out.
After a short break we get to the Q&As. As is always the case on such occasions, the questions from the audience range from the incisive to the humorous, but it matters only to the extent to which they galvanize Jaz for (as anyone who has ever interviewed him will know), once a question has been posed, the answer can go quite literally anywhere. This proves to be the case this evening when a simple question over a Killing Joke album segues into a lengthy discussion of geopolitics. Along the way, we get a fascinating mixture of darkness and light. Jaz is fond of explaining that his musical tastes are split between the sublime beauty of classical and the dissonance of Killing Joke. His discussions often weave a similar path between humour and bleakness, where the losses accrued along Killing Joke’s stony path are offset by outlandish tales that cannot fail to bring laughter.
Ultimately, Unspeakable does not demystify Killing Joke. It does, however, place Jaz’s essential humanity front and centre. He may not love all of Killing Joke’s various members, but his respect for the contribution is evident; while his absolute love for the much-missed Geordie Walker is the thread that holds it all together. It was a fantastic night, intimate and funny, heart breaking and heart-warming, and as we leave the venue, we find ourselves wanting to explore the Killing Joke catalogue all over again in light of what we’ve shared. That, to me, seems to be the mark of a successful tour.
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