Live review: Kill It Kid

Sex, style and blazing rock’n’roll from young bluesified Brits.

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Outside, it’s cold and drizzly. Inside, it’s bloody boiling.

Maybe Kill It Kid have brought the heat of LA – where they cut latest album _You Owe Nothing _– or maybe blues-rock brother duo Gallery Circus have cranked up the temperature with their biting support set. And our headlining four-piece are roasting, perspiring within minutes of kicking off at this Northern Quarter haunt.

Drummer Marc Jones told us earlier: “If you become a Kill It Kid fan it’s probably because you’ve seen us live.” It takes little time to see what he means. On record, their Mississippi Fred McDowell blues-infused rock is a commanding, original thing. Live, in a very artistic, non-sleazy way, it oozes sexual magnetism – specifically, between coupled-up co-vocalists Stephanie Ward and Chris Turpin, breathily sighing into microphones for High Class – all turbocharged by the cool, pounding rhythm section of Jones and bassist Dom Kozubik.

“Any fans of Woody Guthrie in here?” Turpin asks. The football-bellowing crowd give a surprisingly enthused ‘Yeah!’ in response. A fair, skinny 26-year-old in a cowboy shirt he may be, but he’s a quietly louche, witty frontman – eschewing select moments of good-natured chat for furious passion in numbers like Tired Of The Way You Want To Live, the heaviest take on gospel you’ll ever hear.

For God’s sake catch them on their next tour. The reception greeting the likes of singalong ballad Caroline suggests their stages could soon start to get much bigger.

Polly Glass
Deputy Editor, Classic Rock

Polly is deputy editor at Classic Rock magazine, where she writes and commissions regular pieces and longer reads (including new band coverage), and has interviewed rock's biggest and newest names. She also contributes to Louder, Prog and Metal Hammer and talks about songs on the 20 Minute Club podcast. Elsewhere she's had work published in The Musician, delicious. magazine and others, and written biographies for various album campaigns. In a previous life as a women's magazine junior she interviewed Tracey Emin and Lily James – and wangled Rival Sons into the arts pages. In her spare time she writes fiction and cooks.