Nothing But Thieves at The Truman, Kansas City, MO (2023-09-26)

During “Trip Switch”, it sounded like the power went out…but what to do?

Southend, Essex UK band Nothing But Thieves made a highly anticipated return visit to downtown Kansas City, packing a “Sold Out AF” Truman, in support of their new and fourth studio album, Dead Club City (on Sony Music UK).

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The air raid sirens could not have announced anything more boisterous than Hastings, UK opening beat punk band, Kid Kapichi (Ben Beetham- guitars, vocals; Eddie Lewis- bass; George Macdonald- drums; Jack Wilson- vocals, guitars), who made the most of their thirty-minutes, with a driving post-punk, take-no-prisoners set, in support of their second full-length, last September’s Here’s What You Could Have Won, the follow-up to 2021’s debut, This Time Next Year.

They had early-on fans in Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes, who took them on tour, and word has spread, with Nothing But Thieves’ Dom Craik co-producing the newest record, which is a punchy working-class take on social issues and emotions and fits in with in the current UK post-punk wave of Idles, Yard Act, shame, Fontaines D.C., and others.

The crowd responded well to the beats and spiked lyrics including on new single, “Let’s Get to Work”, the politically charged “New England” (w/taped verses chimed in from Bob Vylan) and the chaos-encouraging set closer, “Smash the Gaff” (us Americans had to be told “gaff” is English slang for a “house or flat” before the song’s start).

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Between acts, Nothing But Thieves even had their own radio station broadcasting from “Dead Club City”, spinning everything from Abba’s “Gimme Gimme Gimme” to more recent club bangers, but as lights dimmed, the crowd knew it was time for the real show. The opening track to their 100-minute set as well as the recent album, is highly danceable, and a bit of a departure in sound, but it set the tone of motion for the evening, well.

Any synth-pop traces of the opening song were wiped away in favor of more rock on “Is Everybody Going Crazy?”, a question singer Conor Mason need not ask the audience, but just had to view the shifting, jumping masses as evidence. The band is now in its second decade, having refined its sound since we saw them during their initial breakthrough in St. Paul, back in 2016 and have become much bigger since – playing the O2 in London and selling over a million albums with a billion overall streams.

We initially described them back then as having a heavy rock sound with Mason’s vocals combining elements of Muse’s Matt Bellamy, Jeff Buckley, and The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins, and that’s still true, despite Mason needing some vocal surgery along the way (his wide-ranging falsetto still sounded good), and with the band expanding their sonic palette with each new record.

Mason acknowledged the band hadn’t played in the area for the last 5-6 years (the pandemic plus his health issues), but thanked the rabid fans for staying loyal, and promised to make up for lost time as they launched into the title track from 2017’s Broken Machine.

As if the crowd wasn’t already on their side, Mason expressed his love for the Chiefs after “Real Love Song”, also asking how many were seeing the band live for the first time, which turned out to be the majority, also explaining, “Our music, it’s all over the place…kinda angry songs, love songs… and we occasionally have a sexy song”, which elicited yelps, as they went into 2018’s “You Know Me Too Well.”

The crowd was loud, singing the 2017 ballad, “Sorry” back to the band and Mason professed that the new “Do You Love Me Yet” was collectively one of the band’s favorites to play. A mid-set jam unleashed the rest of the band as Mason stepped aside, with Mason returning to comment that guitarist/band producer Dom Craik is now a vegetarian, but his last “meat meal” was locally at Joe’s BBQ, enjoying one last great taste before leaning more plant-based.

“We’re gonna play an old one, one that helped us a lot in America” Mason prefaced 2015’s breakout hit, “Trip Switch” but he turned to the band and cut the song off halfway through, noticing the crush of people pushing against the front railing, and seeing a girl in distress. After staff plucked her out with Mason suggesting she move upstairs to the VIP balcony, the band resumed at the exact end point, to fully finish the song.

The two-song encore started with the punch of single “Amsterdam” from their Broken Machine album (which will be insane live for anyone seeing them there next February) and after promising they’d be back “so much quicker than we were.” The night would end with the slower but anthemic,” Overcome” from the new record and ending all on a positive note, with Mason repeating, “And we shall overcome, as we've done before.”

And with that, Nothing But Thieves left the building, with “Dead Club City” reverting back into Kansas City, but a packed crowd happy to be along for the temporary journey.

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