BLACK KNOTS vs X-FILES Saturday, July 26th
The Black Knots are one of the local scene’s most rockin’ bands. Photo by Nick Harrah
On the agenda Saturday night was the new X-Files movie, followed by a swing by of The Empty Glass in Charleston to catch Huntington’s Black Knots and The Big Bad. The movie sucked, but the bands rocked. The night started out with us catching the 9:40 p.m. X-Files at Park Place Cinemas or whatever it’s called now (check thegazz.com’s blue homepage MovieFinder to find out). The movie basically had nothing cool in it. That’s all I’ll say about it cuz this ain’t no movie review blog.
After getting out of there around midnight we swung through the drive-through at Wendy’s on Charleston’s historic East End. Why am I telling you all this? It’s because — after seeing the Knots, all the buildup and wait was worth it. Just like reading this post.
I rolled into the sweltering half-full Glass a little after midnight, already knowing that The Whiskey Daredevils couldn’t make it, and got to catch the tail end of The Big Bad’s set. They played some tunes off their new EP and definitely conjur The Misfits and other melodic horror-themed type punk bands. Good stuff. Their singer, after seeing former Pistol Whippers Guy Parker and Dirt Reynolds (now Bobby Balboa in the Knots) in the crowd, announced something like “The Pistol Whippers are up next!” to much laughter after the bassist reminded him it was the Knots up next.
After some back and forth during the sound check, Knots frontman Jerry Lee Queen said something to the effect of “F— it, let’s go!” as the Knots rolled through songs off their debut CD “Hellbent To Kick It Out.” Since they had more time to play with the absence of the Daredevils, they did some songs off their upcoming releases. Queen rocked the bass with his lanky 6-foot-3-ish frame, and lead guitarist (and producer) Greg Gatlin spent a lot of time in front of his amp on his knees. The band, with Gatlin, Queen and Balboa out front had a co-ordinated tripartite (ED. NOTE: Hey, man, you, tryin’ to get, like, inte-LEXTUAL in this here blog with them fancy words?) guitar attack, moving to the front of the stage in unison to bring the rock.
During a Supersuckers cover, Bobby blew a big flame as he is known to do (and was recently pictured doing in a Gazz article on the band). I was, conveniently enough, snapping pics during the song, but just missed the flame. Balboa shook it off, looking flame-broiled stunned, and let a female fan smell his singed arm hair.
The Knots are indeed off the chain with their swaggering rock. They were super tight as they played their last show before going into the Oil River studios to record “The Guitarmageddon” and “The Illuminati” for Deadbeat and Teenage Heart Records. During their set, Queen and Balboa announced that an Italian label was interested in doing something with the band. The Knots are one of the most rockin’ local bands I’ve seen, that’s for sure.
A little before two a.m., I had to bolt, because I was interested in visiting the East End’s 7-11. But the evening did not disappoint. The bands, at least.
