Live Review: Kingfishr - Camden Assembly, London 24/10/2023
With ‘The Prologue Tour’ selling out seemingly overnight, a second, upgraded show in Limerick flying off the shelves fast enough to open the band up to insurance claims for whiplash, and a token London show also — you guessed it — selling out, the buzz around Limerick trio’s Kingfishr is almost as unbelievable as they were live, for the lucky few at Camden Assembly on October 24th.
To say that the trio of Edmond Keogh, Eoghan McGrath & Eoin Fitzgibbon have exploded onto the scene is one hell of an understatement. Having had a string of prestigious support slots earlier in the year — from modern musical maestros Dermot Kennedy and George Ezra at their festival shows, to playing in support of possibly one of the greatest living legends alive today, at one of the Bruce Springsteen & E Street band BST shows — the trio that make up Kingfishr have only been going from strength to strength, and the string of decisively sold out shows is just one more notch on their guitars, banjos and mandolins.
Sounding like the love child of Dermot Kennedy and Bear’s Den, the trio blend soulful, poignant songwriting and harmonies with acoustic folk melodies to create powerful and beautiful sounds that channel the same otherworldliness of a bard of old.
Having met back in 2017 while studying Engineering at the University of Limerick, it’s been a whirlwind few months for the lads; having released debut single ‘flowers-fire’ only last year — allegedly the week before their final exams!— they now have a total of six released singles, to a one all bursting with heart and singed by fiery passion. They’re nothing short of incredible, and the fact that the litany of shows are selling out based purely on those singles' strength is doubly so.
But first, let’s go over the wonderful support for the evening: Annika Kilkenny. From County Kilkenny — if you can believe it! — Annika had a distinctly charming and disarming way about her; as she took to the stage, smiling ear to ear, and broke into opener ‘Out In The Garden’, her earnest singing won the crowd over pretty much instantly. ‘One song down’, she chuckled, nervously, shaking her arms to try and cast out the nerves, and anyone left in the crowd who wasn’t already simultaneously proud of and amazed by the songstress was converted and captivated in turn.
Her set might not have been the most upbeat, sure. Death, regret, and moving on featured heavily. One song seemed to be so poignant as to warrant a warning, with the ‘super emosh’ ‘Look Mum I Made It’, Annika’s debut single, having the singer surreptitiously looking over the crowd for tears while crooning her heart out. Even the token positive song, ‘Taken Out By The Wind’, from her upcoming EP, was beautiful yet still oddly macabre — but, bar the odd cough, the room was pretty much silent, even the bar mostly fading away. No one wanted to disturb the peace; not even a cover of ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’, made distinctly hers by the new lilting lyrical arrangement, could break the spell, the crowd singing along almost reverentially.
That is, of course, except for the poor girl at the front who hadn’t put her phone on silent! A sudden ringtone which interrupted the intro to the afore mentioned ‘Taken Out By The Wind’ seemed to leave the crowd on a knife’s edge; Annika’s chuckling reply, ‘aren’t you going to answer that?’ seemed the prefect counter, full of charm and mirth in spades, and was the perfect way to disarm the gig etiquette faux pas.
Relatable lyrics — particularly existential musings and self-deprecating jokes — went hand in hand with a sincere solemnity far beyond her years, all while almost meta mess-ups helped diffuse the palpable hush from the crowd. A fantastic support, made even better by it being her debut London show!
At that point it was only a short wait for the Limerick lads, though that didn’t stop the excited crowd from whooping any time someone went on stage to tinker with the instruments. When they did eventually venture forth, though, the crowd went nuts — and for want of another word, the band seemed to bask in it. All smiles, the five piece — the usual three joined by both an extra touring guitarist and a drummer — launched straight into an effortlessly good instrumental intro, which eventually gave way to the incredible ‘eyes don’t lie’, frontman Edmond Keogh’s deep, evocative and powerful vocals wasting no time in breaking into the soaring chorus. Raw, unbridled talent warred with a slight, tempered cockiness — which couldn’t be helped, really, with their international debut headline show selling out in less than an hour! — all under the emerald glow of the house lights, though whether that particularly Irish colour was planned, unintentional, or the lighting tech taking a liberty or two is up to you!
“Lads, we’re Kingfishr”, exclaimed Ed, “and this is outrageous! How the feck have we done this?”
Cheers and chuckles aplenty at the baffled frontman, but no time to rest: there’s gigging to be done! Diving straight into ‘Headlands’ — “about all the shite that comes along with a farm”, we’re told — the unreleased and tear-jerkingly emotional ‘Leave’, about family and how maybe they’re worth it in the end, and ‘Heart In The Water’, about mortality and the need to take chances in life — particularly poignant given the band’s own humble beginnings — the crowd began to lose themselves in the band’s sound.
It would be easy to listen to that sound — say, the opening chords of new single ‘Caroline’ — and just reduce the sound to ‘banjo band’. Everyone knows Mumford and Sons got a bad, reductive rap because of that. But Kingfishrare so, so much more. As the crowd listened, engrossed and entranced, they could have been anywhere: around a campfire, gentle harmonies around a guitar line; a packed pub, good natured choruses riding up; the swell of a sold-out arena show, the known songs feeling like a battle of wills as to whether the band or the crowd would be victorious, the sheer volume thrown up by adoring voices.
The next unreleased track, however, ‘Acres’, certainly gave more weight to that idea of a campsite, perhaps in an oppressive forest. Led in by the beat of a kick drum, ‘Acres’ felt distinctly darker than anything the band had released or played thus far, mesmerisingly haunting; “these acres”, we hear, I’d let them all burn for her”, in as much of a snarl as they were a sung chorus.
A cover of Bell X1’s ‘Rocky Took A Lover’ followed up next, the original’s slight synthy, electronic sound replaced by Kingfishr’s distinctively catchy instrumentals, before the crowd were treated to the melancholy ‘Afterglow’ and the harmonica-featuring ‘Shot In The Dark’; the latter felt particularly special, the band venturing into the crowd to play the bluesy folk song acapella. Even here though, with a relatively unknown cover and two unreleased songs, the crowd just refused to give up; to the band’s surprise, even these were met with recognition, audience members happily singing the words learnt from either previous live shows or garnered from shaky videos online.
At this point, with the band beginning to soften under the weight of the love present in the room, we were treated to the story behind the afore mentioned 'Shot In The Dark’ — basically, that’s how the band felt. About 18 months prior, the trio packed it all in: they quit their jobs, left college, and decided to sign with a label. “Give this a whack”, as Ed puts it, with ‘this’ being the ol’ music industry, in all of its daunting forms. And, well, thank god they did.
After venturing back through the crowd, clambering on stage once more, it was time for the last two unreleased tracks, which ended up coming as a pair of sorts. Just after writing ‘Shot In The Dark’, on the way to the airport for a trip to London, Ed ran into his first girlfriend — well, his first ex-girlfriend, he was quick to point out after shooting down both the cheers and the resultant boos; “more the middle of the road”, Eoin ‘Fitz’ Fitzgibbon chimed in, “whatever sound that is!” — just as she was embarking on a move to Vancouver. Hence the name: “Vancouver”. A catchy, rockier tune — and possibly the only one with no banjo? — Vancouver immediately captured the crowd, happily joining in on the bridge. This, then, led into ‘Light Of My Life’, with Ed quick to tell us that it was written “about the same girl, unfortunately”. This one felt somewhere between hopeful and forlorn, gentle crooning over heartfelt instrumentals.
Sadly, though, that led to the final song (*wink*), in the form of crowd-pleaser ‘Anyway’. With the distinctive opening synths replaced by the lads’ harmonies, it quickly evolved into some of the deepest vocals displayed that night, along with some of the jauntiest banjo-plucking and loudest crowd participation, resulting in a final crescendo of instrumentals and raucous cheers, drawing a close to the night.
Except, well, not really. “We might do one more, will we?”, Ed cheekily asked the crowd, as if the band had a choice, with the crowd standing between them and any form of exit. In this case, both debut single ‘flowers-fire’, which has also had a new version released today with Jamie Duffy on keys, and newest song ‘Caroline’. Beautiful wouldn’t do the tracks justice, particularly when faced with the emotional, devout singing of a crowd reluctant for the night to end.
It had to, of course, but not before a drawn out outro has the two-and-a-bit hundred voices crying the harmony in unison.
Even with the music coming to a close, though, the night’s celebrations were just beginning; despite security trying to direct everyone to leave, the trio manned the merch table to meet everyone after. Basically, a fantastic show capped off by a band fully immersed in their own community of fans. What could be better?
Camden Assembly might not be the biggest venue, but the fact that it sold out pretty much instantly only highlights that that’ll be the last time the band will be playing such a small space (as a headline show, anyway). Nor should they; Tuesday was a live show meant for arenas. Whether they end up there depends in part on the whims of the fickle music gods; but ultimately, Ed put it best. “Tonight’s the last show of our tour”, we were told, shortly before closer ‘Caroline’. “Wherever this end up, thank you so much for being a part of it”. No-one knows what the future holds, but for one glorious Tuesday evening, it was blindingly bright.
Words by James O’Sullivan
