On the 2nd of August I was lucky enough to catch Dad’s Best Friend, Roadrunners, Sleepy Badgers and headliners The Tranquils at King Tuts for night 17 of their Summer Nights sessions. I walked in not fully knowing what to expect this time, and left with new staples for my Spotify playlists. The night was a whirlwind of loud guitar solos and even louder drums and flashing purple lights and head-banging and fiery vocals and singers at the barricades (these are a few of my favourite things). Read my thoughts below.
Let me start off by saying King Tuts is EASILY one of my favourite venues in the world. It is quite intimate, etc, etc, yes, but every time you walk into it, you are walking on the same hallowed ground as some of the greatest bands in history have, and it feels surreal every single time. Every single time you see a band on that stage, you might just be seeing the next stratospheric phenomenon in music and one day, when people are queueing for hours on Ticketmaster trying to pay more than their rent to see them at Murrayfield or Glastonbury, you’ll get to say with a smirk “I seen them at King Tuts back in the 2020s”. How insanely cool is that?
At 7:45pm local rock band Dad’s Best Friend took the stage. You can really hear the influences from the 90s and early 2000s in their music (think Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance and other such legends) and I particularly enjoyed their performance style; full of passion and rage and fire.
At half past eight we saw Roadrunners. The vocals in every single track they played had me in an absolute trance, and I love how naturally being on stage seems to come to them; their set was loud and unapologetic and nothing short of stunning. The tracks from their EP “Echoes of Yesterday” from 2024 have become new favorites of mine and I can’t wait to see these guys again.
Up next were Sleepy Badgers at 9:15. Their track titled “Scumbag” now out on Soundcloud is (and I say this with 100% seriousness) the definition of a can’t miss, so much so that I’ve been constantly switching between Spotify and Soundcloud ever since the gig. With that being said, their live rendition of it was one I wish I could see again for the first time, like a film that’s particularly stuck with you.
Headliners The Tranquils took the stage at 10:00 and where do I even begin with them? Watching this set from the barricade was an almost otherworldly experience and it felt like being flung headlong into some kind of 80s heavy rock fever dream. The relationship and chemistry they have with their audience is electric, and I think every single person in that room contributed to the magic.
I was personally thrilled when they played a fantastic cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” (and the crowd goes wild!) as a tribute to the greatest who ever did live, Ozzy Osbourne. This automatically makes them (objectively) one of the right bands to listen to, all the time, everywhere. With that being said the rest of their set was spectacular, and if you haven’t listened to “Wandering Eye” and “Chameleon” out on Spotify yet, run, don’t walk.
I believe that there is a stark difference between coming up on stage and playing music and putting on a show. The Tranquils smashed the latter out the park with vigour and energy of a nature that I can only last remember witnessing at The Darkness (yes, this is me foreshadowing their very likely appearance at the O2 Academy soon). They made it an unforgettable night and I can’t wait to see them again.
I was also lucky enough to chat with the lovely members of The Tranquils post-gig, so stay tuned for the interview.