John Knapper appeared to be on top of the world Saturday night May 19th as his band Kwang celebrated the release of their new CD For What It’s Worth at the Uptown Bar. And for good reason. The new 10-song Kwang album is rocking and fun, and Knapper’s band's stage show is campy, yet quality, including just enough hamming it up to keep it real while still treating their Kiss, Aerosmith and GnR-influenced rock with respect. In addition to Knapper, Kwang featuries Justin Marreel on lead guitar (Marreell played plenty of solos Saturday), Dan Laubach (also of The Skullcranes) on bass, who played almost the entire show with his hand in a bandage after getting 32 stitches in it the night before after an encounter with an electric saw (how rock and roll is that?) And Jonathon TeBeest sits behind the drum kit.
Kwang played their album straight though tightly and professionally, but might have had done without the GnR cover that provided one of the encores. Album producer Darren Jackson joined them on stage to help perform an apparently mostly unrehearsed rendition of “Patience,” and combined with the bemused look on Jackson’s face, he kind of summed it up when he asked, before beginning what was to become a bit of a trainwreck of a song, "Are we really going to do this?" The audience was having so much fun by that point, however, they ate it up anyway.
See the full photo set by David de Young from this show here.
Share this photo:
