I’ve had three separate opportunities to see King Krule starting from 2018. I’ve had a ticket for the concert on every one of those opportunities, but it wasn’t until this most recent that I finally got to see him perform.

The first time around I had a conflicting event arise that I had to go to, it was a bit unfortunate but I knew he would come back eventually. That opportunity arose two years later, in 2020, and well, I don’t think I need to expand too much on why that didn’t end up happening.

Since then, he’s released two full projects. With his album count now totaling 5, he has an expansive repertoire to pull from. I had many favorites I wanted to hear, so I was delighted to hear that his set would last about an hour and a half, giving him plenty of time to perform a wide range of tracks.

It was a cloudy day, one of the first in a very long time. Perfect King Krule weather. I tend to associate music with seasons/weather, and rainy days have always felt like the perfect time to put on a King Krule record.

The stage set up was fairly simple, with a large backdrop featuring a large empty landscape painting created by his brother, Jack Marshall, from which the album cover for Space Heavy came from. A rug adorned the center of the space, filling up the space between the drum set and the main microphone. Accompanying him on stage was another guitarist, a bassist, a keyboard player, the aforementioned drummer, and lastly, a saxophonist. As soon as he took the stage and started playing, I felt overwhelmed with emotions and started tearing. Admittedly, it doesn’t take much to make me tear up, it happens very frequently at concerts, but finally, I’d get to experience hearing some of my favorite songs of all time played live. After two unsuccessful attempts, the third one finally worked out.

King Krule is an artist who’s music hasn’t had any major shifts in characteristics and style. That’s not so say there hasn’t been any evolution in his artistry, but rather it’s been a gradual progression. It feels like it’s matured alongside with him throughout his career and throughout his life. As a result, his catalog feels cohesive in a way that allows him to hop between albums without it being jarring, while still offering a way for him to showcase different facets of his style and personality.

I didn’t really know what to expect from the show, but I didn’t think it would be as high-energy as it was. There were a lot more flashing, strobing lights than I had anticipated, and overall it was just a more intense concert than I had predicted. Of course, it wasn’t like that the entire time, the energy was well managed, with more mellow portions that slowly built up momentum.

In particular, there was a section that started out with “Tortoise of Independence”, then went into tracks such as “Empty Stomach Space Cadet”, and “Our Vacuum”, building up with “From The Swamp” and then peaking with “Stoned Again” before finally playing the crowd favorite, “Easy Easy”.

The setlist ended with “If Only It Was Warmth”, a beautiful closing track to a lovely night. According to the Spotify playlists, he played “Out Getting Ribs” as an encore track, so I guess I might’ve missed out on that, but it was a Wednesday night, I have work tomorrow, and more importantly, I gotta feed my cat.