Today we continue with the 1994 Pandemonium tour t-shirt. After Extremities everything fell apart. Jaz fucked off and did a bunch of stuff. Geordie, Martin, Raven and Bechedel wanted to keep going so they enlisted Chris Connolly and Big Paul Fergusson (yes) for what would be known as the Murder Inc. project and attempted tours.
Up until 1994 Killing Joke seemed dead. Jaz was publicly upset with Geordie and Raven for defecting to Atkins for this project. By 1994 Geordie and Jaz made up with help from Youth (original Killing Joke bass player). By this point Raven was busy with Prong and more Pigface tours. Atkins was, and likely will always be, on Jaz's shitlist.
The Millennium album came as a bit of a surprise. No one was expecting it. And the record is actually quite good. A departure from their previous/recent works. A bit of a step towards the early stuff I guess. Repetitive in spots. Youth along with Geordies recent liking towards electronic music added to a thunderous, digital, hypnotic and pulsing record.
But the tour.....oh yeah. St Andrews Hall. Sold wayyy out. Stabbing Westward opened. Unfortunately it seems from this point forward Killing Joke has a knack for picking mediocre opening bands. But he show was excellent. They were on, tight, and played songs from every album EXCEPT, Extremities, Outside the Gate (duh), Fire Dances and Brighter than a 1000 Suns (Courtald Talks doesn't even count). So that is five albums. That is a lot. Everybody was excited to see them. I was up in the balcony absolutely mesmerized. The show was over and I had to snap out of it.
I cherish this shirt as this was the first time I was able to see Killing Joke. And for the longest time I thought it would be the only time.
After the Pandemonium tour Democracy came out. Which is a good record but half-heartedly produced. Youth bailed at this point (replaced by Troy Gregory for the tour) and a bunch of cancelled shows started to pop up. This will start to become a sign of when Killing Joke has run its course (at least for the moment)
Day 3....The Death and Resurrection Show
