Live Review: King’s X @ Tally Ho Theater – 3/9/24

Live Review

Live Review: King’s X @ Tally Ho Theater – 3/9/24

marcshea2

March 14, 2024

Live Review: King’s X @ Tally Ho Theater – 3/9/24 — King's X performs at Tally Ho Theatre on March 9, 2024. (Photo by Marc Shea)

When I started thinking about writing the review for the King’s X concert at Tally Ho Theater in Leesburg, Virginia, last weekend, I thought I had a pretty good theme in mind. I was going to write about the fact that when you see King’s X, you know what you’re going to get. They’re damn professionals, after all. They’ve been together since the early ’80s, for crying out loud!

But when I got there, I realized that wasn’t going to work at all.

I’ve mentioned it many times, here and elsewhere: Watch the openers. That was the first inclination that I really didn’t know what I was going to get. I got to Tally Ho Theatre on March 9 in plenty of time to see opener Vinnie Moore. However I also got there in even plentier time to see the REAL opener, Sound & Shape from Nashville. I had no idea! They were very good and played rock with a touch of prog in there.

Vinnie Moore was next. His set WAS exactly what you’d expect; 99% instrumental rock. There was one song with lyrics and that came near the end of the set. And it seemed to me to be a very short set for Vinnie. So that was something I did NOT expect. It really did feel like his set was shorter than Sound & Shape.

As I was waiting for King’s X to emerge on stage, I found out that there were two kids in the audience (not related) who were attending their very first concerts! So they had absolutely NO idea what to expect. But, in my humble opinion, King’s X is a great band to pick for your first show. You are guaranteed to get a great show. The trio is nothing if not a consistently awesome live band and they are currently touring in support of their latest album, Three Sides Of One.

Check out the official music video for “All God’s Children” by King’s X on YouTube:

Their live prowess was evident when they came out and started the show with the crushing Groove Machine from their Tapehead album. The first five songs were all from their ’90s albums, with the exception of the song “Vegetable,” from 2001’s Manic Moonlight. That’s when they started playing music from the new release.

In fact, the next eight songs were all from Three Sides Of One.

Bassist dUg Pinnick sang most of the songs and addressed the crowd occasionally between them. There wasn’t a lot of banter between songs, but when it happened, it was usually about the hope that we all find love and happiness. He mentioned several times how lucky he was to have been in a band with guitarist Ty Tabor and drummer Jerry Gaskill.

My favorite moment was close to the end of the show when dUg threw out that they had been playing together for 40 plus years. And it was incredible to have friends that you sometimes want to kill but that you know you would kill for. The show wrapped up with “We Were Born To Be Loved” from the Faith Hope Love album.

They stepped offstage for just a minute and came back for a four song encore, all of which were older songs. The final song of the evening was the fan favorite “Goldilox.” Before they hit the first note, Ty and dUg spun their mic stands around to face the audience. Once they hit that first note, the crowd started singing. It was obvious that it touched the band pretty deeply, even if they do it each show.

How could you not feel something? I know everyone in that theater did!

So it was a great show. And even if I thought I knew what to expect, I realized that you never REALLY know what’s going to happen when you go see live music. That’s one of my favorite things about it.