It seems to me that Kai Cambos and Dom Maker aka MOUNT KIMBIE only released their new album Cold Spring Fault Less Youth yesterday, but it is November already (or better to say “Mo-vember”, a fact you do not forget walking through London streets these days), and the duo is almost halfway through its european headline tour. Time flies these days, but who am I to talk – MOUNT KIMBIE definitely had a more eventful 2013. This year, their critically acclaimed second album, together with their catchy single Made to Stray, pushed MOUNT KIMBIE‘s popularity to a point that it easily sells out venues like the KOKO in London last week.
KOKO is not only one of the most beautiful, but also one of the most popular and historically relevant venues in London. Being originally built as a theater around 1900, the building now has been renovated into a club that has already served as a venue for artists like MADONNA and PRINCE, and was furthermore the last place AC/DCs Bon Scott visited before his death. Not without melancholy, it reminded me of Berlin’s recently burned down Festsaal Kreuzberg. The 4-story wooden hall with ornate balconies has kept its charm, its beauty as well its 1500 people capacity perfectly suited MOUNT KIMBIE‘s live show.
Already by 9pm, the venue was massively crowded with moustached youngsters and dressed up girls – getting a drink was almost mission impossible before MOUNT KIMBIE entered the stage around 9.40 pm. Both equipped with guitars, percussion tools and synths, the duo was furthermore accompanied by an additional drummer. With some old tunes the band warmed up before quickly changing to the new stuff by playing the first track of the new record, Home Recording, followed by deep and rhythmic Blood and Form. However it took until then to entirely get the people to engage with the music. Luckily, the duo had much more to offer: The old-school tunes of Break Well and an experimental So Many Times, So Many Ways lead into a massive applause when MOUNT KIMBIE‘s guest vocalist KING KRULE himself entered the stage. The young musical wunderkind seemed to mostly amaze the female audience with a truly original version of You Took Your Time, but subsequently left the final peak to MOUNT KIMBIE who closed the set with their ‘hit’ Made To Stray. Due to the lyric-screaming crowd it was indeed hard to perceive Kai Cambos original vocals for this track, probably a good thing as it distracted from the incredibly bad sound system of KOKO that sadly was unable to cope with the deep bass of most of the tracks. The audience however seemed not to be bothered by this fact: Their shouts for an encore were answered shortly after the band left the stage, and they happily took their chance to dance to Major to the very last second.
MOUNT KIMBIE will be in Germany and Austria soon, so save the dates:
26.11. Hamburg- Uebel & Gefährlich
27.11. Leipzig – Conne Island
28.11. Frankfurt- Zoom
29.11. Berlin – Gretchen
02.12. Vienna- Flex
03.12. Munich- Rote Sonne
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