GIG REVIEW + GALLERY: King Kong Company and Le Boom at The Academy

King Kong Company (KKC) are beginning to move from cult status to national treasure, as they’ve been wowing onlookers at summer festivals and selling out gigs all over the country.

To kick off the night, Pop-House duo Le Boom play to an ever-growing audience. All vintage Adidased, tight jeaned and light on their toes, the pair stir the pot with snappy tunes and an unwavering zing. Bandmate Chris supplies Empire of The Sun sounding male falsettos. Meanwhile, our vehement drummer, Aimie, bobs around clinking drumsticks on glass bottles, bashing hi-hats and pounds kettledrums. Battery packs upon battery packs of charged vigour.

_image2_

Waiting patiently, the room now bursts with an assemblage of different groups of people; Bearded crusties, Jack the lads, doting rural mammies and heavily made up lassies. The moment has arrived. Three monkey-masked King Kong Company members enter stage and raise clenched fists into the air. As expected, the dance outfit start rousing the audience with a fire ball of hard techno. Helmet clad racing drivers thrash about uninhibitedly. Strobe lights and lasers dart over eyes of wonderment.

_image3_

Bearing witness to this type of dance music - and unlike the wob wobby Dubstep favoured during a mid 2000s Dublin - King Kong Company manages to transcend music fashion much the same as The Prodigy and their own timeless classics.

One of KKC’s other main selling points, is that they balance audience interaction with a visual vomiting of outlandish costume design, projections, performance art and stage lighting. But not in a wanky way - and that’s a fine line. Two band groupies are further seen to rub shoulders with the crowd in signature monkey masks and cardboard box heads. KKC are operating like a collective - Basement Jaxx-esque - which is a very 90s way to do things. What a refreshing re-emergence, after decades of looking at four piece bands herald fans while their trojan horses hide backstage.

_image4_

Back to The Academy, and the screen’s backdrop now spits out everything from AIB and Shell Oil logos, to retro arcade games like Pacman and Donkey Kong. More wacky, kinetic performances arrive in the form of a fist pumping cyclops, a psychiatric, military bunny and some kind of Stormtrooper knockoff wielding a laser gun. Foam’s being sprayed everywhere.

What comes with starting big, often results in an inability to sustain momentum. King Kong Company’s prowess at pace making sees the audience reach near boiling point when M.I.A’s Paper Planes goes Drum n Bass. Preceding this, a total genre change in The Prodigy's reggae rooted Out of Space track. And following, comes lyrical shape shifting when frontman Mark Graham treats the audience to some Waterfordonian trip-hop prose.

_image5_

If all that wasn’t enough, Graham tells the crowd a man in the audience has an important question to ask his girlfriend. Down on one knee the lad goes, hands a quivering as he brandishes an engagement ring. One big “yes!” and the concert-goers roar the house down.

One of our fans proposed to another fan during the gig. She said yes (why wouldn't she?) congratulations Paudge and Robyn ???? #soldout #academydublin #dublingig #marraige #proposal #proposalvideo

A post shared by King Kong Company (@kingkongcomp) on Dec 16, 2017 at 2:24pm PST

In a subtle twist to the norm, King Kong Company leave without playing an encore. Exit music comes on to quell any hope. A few minutes later, the little hoodwinkers come out again to play another three adrenaline loaded bangers. The hoards nearly alter the earth’s gravitational pull with their floorboard bouncing.

You’d be absolutely mad not to go to one of their gigs.