Kid Karate at Pianos

Kid Karate is a two-piece band from Dublin, Ireland, comprised of vocalist/guitarist Kevin Breen and drummer Steven Gannon. Kid Karate’s debut Lights Out EP was released in North America and Ireland on July 23rd. There is no way around it, any rock band composed exclusively of a hard riffing guitarist and a sternum-shattering drummer is going to be compared to the White Stripes and the Black Keys. Now that we have that out of the way, we can talk about Kid Karate’s performance at Pianos tonight.

The Pianos showroom usually features young bands just getting used to playing live. Kid Karate played the small room like it was a stadium. The music was gritty, raw, brutal and bombastic. Breen simultaneously juggled rough riffs and stinging leads on his guitar, howled lyrics into the microphone like an old blues singer in tremendous pain, and jumped around continuously like an aerobics leader. Across the stage, Gannon was smashing the drums and pummeling the cymbals. With just two people on stage trying to make an impression, they could not help but be charismatic. They were set on claiming the audience’s attention, and they succeeded. This was aggressive, thunderous, noisy, plus sized rock and it was very, very good. We should be hearing a lot more about Kid Karate in the near future.