If you are an ardent supporter of the unsigned indie music scene then Earlestown’s The K’s won’t be an unfamiliar name to you. Last seen in Sheffield supporting The Reytons in their history-making gig at the Utilita Arena in September, they made their anticipated return on Wednesday evening at The Leadmill, headlining a stage that has hosted some of Britain’s finest guitar bands over its forty-plus year history.
If you aren’t necessarily up to date with unsigned indie bands then make sure you get to know The K’s. Launching into their fifteen-song setlist with the electric ‘Picture’, the band receive a level of energy from a sold-out main stage audience that simply does not drop for the hour-and-a-bit that they are on stage. Immediately after the conclusion of their first track, they are serenaded with “Yorkshire!” chants from an adoring crowd and though they hail from west of the Pennines, they must have secretly enjoyed the incredible atmosphere that The Leadmill commanded.
After the incredibly catchy ‘Got a Feeling’, they play the lead single from their soon-to-be-released debut LP I Wonder if The World Knows? entitled ‘Heart on my Sleeve’. When an audience is so familiar with the back catalogue that a band has curated for the best part of a decade, new releases may not go down as well. As the Leadmill audience bounce around to a song that was released to the world not ten hours earlier, it is made evident that The K’s do not have this problem.
With their unique sound full of guitarist Ryan Breslin’s mesmerising riffs, tremendous bass playing from the returning Dexter Baker, superb drumming from Jordan Holden and the beautiful voice of lead vocalist Jamie Boyle, the band dream of fame on ‘TV’, describe drunken tales on ‘Chancer’ and the working-class transition from childhood to adulthood on ‘Landmines’. The K’s are charismatic; Baker, Boyle and Breslin all banter with the audience throughout the night and after act one of their setlist concludes with their 2019 breakout ‘Glass Towns’, Boyle cools the audience down by sampling Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ on an acoustic guitar, plucking away by himself at first before being joined by the rest of the band for the beautiful ‘Hoping Maybe’.
Once the band allow the crowd to wipe their sweat away, they continue with ‘Aurora’ and ‘Valley One’. They bring the tempo of the gig up through ‘Hometown’ which, while definitely inspired by the Manchester music scene of the 1990s, particularly Oasis, is brought to life with its own unique clever lyricism and foot-stomping energy. It strikes me how difficult it is to do anything but watch on in awe (though the four gentlemen beside me tried to, as it felt like they did almost anything except watch the concert they had paid to attend).
Concluding the setlist with ‘Sarajevo’, potentially one of the only rock songs to discuss the events that began the First World War – including a very clever namedrop of Austria-Hungary – it struck me that I have now seen The K’s in four different venues – arena, festival, theatre and now an intimate arena – and the band has not looked or sounded out of place at any point. Every single time they have taken the stage, they have taken their audience almost under their spell, hypnotising them with a brand of rock and roll that many thought was dead after the last few Arctic Monkeys records.
If you hadn’t heard of The K’s, then make sure you buy their debut record – because they won’t stay in venues like The Leadmill for long; they seem destined to follow the footsteps of energetic guitar bands who have emerged from Liverpool and Manchester and move on to much bigger things.