King Khan & The BBQ Show, Live at Underground Arts, Philadelphia, 9/9/22
BY JOEY SWEENEY | Rock and roll brought me up to believe that if you are sincere enough, you eventually get to abandon yourself completely. All of your anxieties and your fears and your external circumstances — if you hand the whole of your being over to the music and the spirit of the night, you will at last be free. Better still, maybe, you may even find community.
I remember hearing a story about how the moment Jonathan Richman wrote “Crazy Little Chewing Gum Wrapper,” the rest of the original Modern Lovers pretty much packed it in. They couldn’t take it. The sincerity of it was too much for them. Fast forward 50 years, and Jonathan Richman is an institution. Turns out, people know when you mean it.
King Khan and BBQ Show — comprised of just the duo of King Kahn and Mark Sultan, who collectively make a much larger signature sound and vibe — have definitely learned from our man Jojo, but that’s not the only thing they’ve taken in. Across an intimidatingly prolific body of songs and side projects and releases, their stuff traverses primal garage texts like those of The Seeds, Thee Headcoats and the ghostly doo-wop of Dion and the papa-oohm-mow-mow of The Trashmen and come up with something all their own. They’re a rock and roll institution the same way the B-52s are; they’re an open invitation to not just be yourself, but to let yourself be an energy, a force, a vibration that contributes to a social whole that’s built around release and acceptance.
And after 20 years and a crazy viral moment on TikTok that only a screenwriter would have predicted, they’ve got a fan community that is, as they say, here for it tonight.
“We came on tour to party and have a good time and not think about things and we hope we’re bringing that same energy to you tonight,” says King Khan, in between numbers.
“Fuck everything outside!,” adds Mark Sultan.
This vibe dominated throughout. I saw every kind of body type and presumably every point on the spectrum of human sexuality actually smiling, actually smiling, in this world, in this day and age. It was infectious in a way that we have forgotten that infectious can be, for infectiousness can be good, too.
How did they do it? Persistence — the band are road dogs in a way they simply do not make anymore — and trueness, and trying enough times that sooner or later, they just had to get one by the goalie. King Khan employ a variation on the Ramones/GBV style of songwriting: If you don’t like this one, wait two minutes, another one’s comin’ right up. And when they connect, a good King Khan chorus soars. It may not even have words; it may be a cascade of yeah-yeahs, or maybe even something sub-verbal. Imagine “Here Comes The Night” by Them, but instead, it’s a wave of light, a dirty nightclub aurora borealis rainbow at the end of which there’s a crisp $20 you forgot that this life still had in store for you.
King Khan and BBQ Show are the only band I’ve ever seen try to make the stage at Underground Arts smaller, hanging a backdrop that would better fit in, say, the living room of a Baltimore rowhouse than a proper rock club, but these guys are nothing if not masters of the limiting exercise. Here is what they have at their disposal: Two guitars, two voices, and one of those persons also has a kick and snare and a tambourine that is completely powered by their feet.
They’re like the most outta control street musicians you’ve ever seen — real Marvin Berry shit. You want to call up your cousin and hold the phone up to to this truth. This undeniable truth of music and communion and life. They’re soulful at the level of Sam Cooke Live at Harlem Square and just as universal. At one point, they had a dance contest on stage. Everybody won.
They must have played, I dunno, 20, 30 songs? They covered “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory,” and it kinda wasn’t as good as everything else. They encored with “Tea Bag Party,” a deep cut off of a seven inch known only to denizens of Discogs, and it was just as good as any of all of all this was, even if you didn’t know it, even if you literally wandered off the street into some moment in the decades-long arc of King Khan, like I just did. Here is a band where quality is elastic, subject to the moment, obedient to the vibe, at all times. The quality I witnessed tonight was simply, wonderfully, true and good.
In between the songs, there’s a kind of chat that’s honestly just the ramblings of goofy bffs telling stories that go nowhere except when they do. “Rock and roll was created by freaks so be that freak!,” Khan says at one point. It may not sound rational that a roomful of people would see themselves in a guy with a sequined hot pants, a wrestling mask and a Davy Crockett hat, but I’m here to tell you that tonight, we do, and it’s beautiful.
It used to be that there wasn’t a lot that affirmed a life on the fringes, but the older I get, the deeper the mess gets, the more I see that affirmation everywhere I look. This is just one of those places. If you’re picking up what I’m putting down, I encourage you to go out tonight and find yours.
I guarantee you it’s out there.
