King's X at City Winery

Doug Pinnick (left) and Ty Tabor

Bassist/vocalist Doug Pinnick was born in Braidwood, Illinois, then at age 14 moved to Joliet, Illinois. Drummer Jerry Gaskill was born and raised in Bridgeton, New Jersey, and attended college in Springfield, Missouri. The two met in 1979 in Springfield while working in a failed musical project coordinated by Greg X. Volz of the Christian rock band Petra, but then became the rhythm section for guitarist Phil Keaggy's live band. Pinnick and Gaskill later played in two separate bands that featured guitarist Ty Tabor. By 1980, Pinnick, Gaskill and Tabor bonded as the Edge, later called Sneak Preview, and renamed King's X in 1985, based out of Houston, Texas. King's X's 12th and most recent studio album is 2008's XV.

King's X has remained together for 37 years despite a lack of commercial success. At City Winery tonight, the power trio demonstrated the brilliance that emerges when three talented musicians are in sync with each other for so long a period. Playing 17 songs from nine of the band's albums, King's X performed complex hard rock with experimental and prog-rock flourishes. Pinnick's muscular vocals borrowed from funk and blues, and the band's harmonies evoked the 1960s British Invasion and psychedelic eras. The lyrics leaned on the spiritual, but derived their essence from the musicians' struggles to balance the perplexities of life while embracing hope. The defining genius in all this was in how the dynamic and dulcet compositions fit together so mellifluously. King's X performed superior music for the intellect and the soul like only a veteran band could muster.

Visit King's X at www.kingsxrocks.com.

Setlist

1. Groove Machine
2. The World Around Me
3. Pillow
4. Flies and Blue Skies
5. Vegetable
6. Cigarettes
7. Pray
8. Black Flag
9. Lost in Germany
10. A Box
11. Looking for Love
12. Summerland
13. Over My Head
14. Go Tell Somebody
15. We Were Born to Be Loved

Encore:

1. Dogman
2. King