King Goon & Fostá

There was a late line-up change for last Friday’s gig due to injuries. My band were supposed to be playing in Swansea but we had to pull out of that after our drummer hurt himself and couldn’t play. The support band in the Masons also had to cancel, as their guitarist had not recovered from a knee operation in time. That is why I somehow found myself on the ukulele as the support act for King Goon. Usually I am my own worst critic (literally) as I tend to over-emphasise things that have gone wrong in my set but at about every one gig in ten, I am reasonably happy with my performance. This was one of those gigs, which unfortunately means I probably have nine band ones coming up. I may have been a bit carried away though and it was probably over-ambitious of me to message the cool tapas bars in Swansea to offer myself and my ukulele to entertain the hipsters.

King Goon are a top quality band from Swansea playing the full range of ska punk styles from Madness to Rancid with the biting satire of The Specials. This social commentary is evident in the lyrics of songs such as The King vs. The Fuzz (All the big piggies lie, try to acted surprised/hang the little piggies out to dry) and The playing field of Eaton (I was taught that I was free/this is nothing like democracy). Despite the seriousness of their songs are the boys have great fun on stage with singer Gareth and bass player James winding each other up throughout the gig. The music is also more complex then the usual pub ska fare with well-crafted songs and a great sound. Joel is an excellent guitarist with his clean biting guitar working well over Keith’s noisy distorted guitar. This is all held together by Hwyel’s quality sweaty drumming and an interesting meld of vocal styles with various members of the band joining in with talking, singing, shouting and rapping to give the vocal harmonies real depth.

I do not know if I inspired the boys with my version of the Beastie Boys’ Fight For Your Right but they also chipped in with some classic hip-hop. I thought their version of Express Yourself must have been inspired by NWA’s version as they then followed it with The Sugarhill Gang’s Rappers Delight. Their interesting choice of covers did not stop there as they finished the gig with Underworld's techno anthem, Born Slippy. I told the band after the gig that they will have to arrange a gig with Llanelli rockers, E11ven, not because I think their music will particularly fit well, apart from E11ven’s usual techno closing track, The Prodigy’s Omen, but because I’ll be interested in the post-gig shenanigans.