King Tuff & Father John Misty, X Factors

By Connor Norris. September 28, 2018. The Fillmore Miami Beach at Jackie Gleason Theater.

The voice is what matters in the music. The voice. The groove is always great, and great rhythm section is, as I said, great, but at the end of the day, who really wants to listen to Steve Vai shred for a 2-hour set?

And don’t get me wrong, voice isn’t just something produced by a human’s vocal chords. Stevie Ray Vaughn had voice. Hendrix had voice. As much as the two of them sang, people didn’t come only for their singing. Some artists have voice in their voice but to be a universally respected artist, at least as much as my teenage matured mind is sure of, you got to have voice in your music. You got to have that different edge from everyone else. As the great Josh Homme has said, “You should be able to tell it’s you in about 4 seconds.” At least make it interesting.

As a music fanatic who basically only works and listens to and plays music, I get it. I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve seen an Instagram ad for a band with less than 200 followers, checked them out, and they’ve turned out to be a garage rock band whose lead singer, frankly, shouldn’t be there. Anyone can have a good rhythm section. Literally, anyone. Start banging your hands on the table at breakfast and now you have a beat. But as great as Iggy Pop’s rhythm section was great (which they truly were), people aren’t there listening for the rhythms. There’s something that Iggy has that the other lunatic who paints himself green and shaves his eyebrows for a show does not have. And THAT is what made his entire career. Iggy’s edge made it possible for him to get behind a rhythm section and say literally whatever he wanted to. He could have been talking about home healthcare agencies for all that I care. Don’t believe me? Listen to “Turn Blue” off of Lust For Life. As much gibberish and meaningless rubble comes out of that dude’s mouth, you’re still going to listen to it. I’m still going to listen to it. It’s his X variable that anyone else doesn’t have the guts to have. And you can see that in almost all great front men.

Mick just kept talking over Keith’s steady groove, Morrison was speaking poetry. Put your average joe in their spot, “Honey, pack your things and let’s go.” Anyone can be cute and sing a song that’ll end up on nighttime radio, right next to Phil Collins archives. But those people are always going to be opening for the next real artist (i.e. my last article in CLOVES opening for Greta Van Fleet).

And going into the Fillmore Miami Beach, honestly, I had only heard about 3 King Tuff songs. I had already liked Father John Misty for several of his acoustic tunes.

King Tuff opened up with an acoustic song, “The Other” played on his quite tastefully bedazzled red Gibson SG. Impressed, I still was hoping for something more. Yet he delivered. He set up the anticipation with “The Other”. He paused after applause from the first song. “How you doing Miami?” He asked. Before we could answer, the beginning to “Circuits in the Sand” provided a much more powerful opening than the recorded version. He got us hooked.

But King Tuff’s hook wasn’t his pedalboard, nor his zebra-striped suit, but was the voice. He’s got it. The alt-raspy twang that he’s got put people in the crowd before the main act came on, not on accident.

King Tuff himself, born Kyle Thomas, traded licks on his vintage Martin acoustic with a very talented Nicole Lawrence playing a Gibson Les Paul Black Beauty in the third song of the set, “Thru the Cracks”. The group strolled through their set untouched, ending with their hit song “Sun Medallion” and “No Man’s Land”.

Before he was King Tuff, Kyle Thomas played in garage thrasher, Ty Segall’s backing band, which draws a very, very conceivable connection to the similarity in the two’s music styles. The thrashing yet tasteful sounds of Segall’s music dipped its toe into the waters of King Tuff’s sound. And as different as the two styles of music may seem, King Tuff and Father John Misty draw the same crowds in their alt-rock kind of way, making the almost perfect opener-main act mix between the two artists.

The opener ended happily ever after, leaving room for the adult swim that would walk on stage as Father John Misty. Following plenty of different instrumentalists that filled their respective spots on stage whether it be as trumpeter or keyboardists, a man with face alike to that of an illustration of Jesus Christ himself strolled onto stage in a white suit, followed by white slacks and a white button-down shirt. The blue light on stage made everything dim except for that white slender suit which was a direct reflection of the light, making the suit itself blue too.

Father John Misty grabbed what looked like a red Gibson Music-Master electric guitar when the same lights that were blue flashed to red. He opened with “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” moving in the red lights. His acoustic piece was followed by a self-title track, “Mr. Tillman” which follows his satirical writing style in lyrics about his latest unhealthy lifestyle, referring to his stay at a hotel. The track also follows a common trait of his taking listeners on a light-headed rollercoaster similar to Suess Land during Halloween Horror Nights.

As the night rolled on, there seemed to be distinct two-faced appearance to his performance. The first being where Father John Misty pulls out one of his many beautiful Martin guitars, or just as well holds nothing but the microphone stand in song. This first type of performance being an acoustic number type, the artist seemed to really speak to the audience in a manner similar to a preacher and his congregation. His intense dance moves showed pain and happiness inside carefully written lyrics. He stomped and pranced around stage with similar likeness to someone that would sit cross-legged on a piano top, singing to a room full of listeners. During “Real Love Baby”, he proved that he had the ability to make love-making tunes. More than half of the crowd was either dancing with a significant other or most definitely embracing their dates/spouses.

The lights during these types of tunes were polka-dotted, showcasing, but not taking away, the thunder from Father John Misty. But this was the slower part of the night.

Clashes of instruments against each other matched with an amazing light show. The lights, in totality of the night, doubled as an extra member of the band. The show would not have been nearly as explosive without the flashes of colors into all crevices of the venue. A second version of performance by Father John Misty turned a good performer into a great performer.

In songs like “Hangout at the Gallows”, “Date Night”, and especially the closer “The Ideal Husband” Mr. Tillman thrashed and used a variety of moves with much more intensity to what was of the acoustic songs of the night. Especially in “Date Night”, Father John Misty proved himself a great performer and artist in the factor of what I began talking about in the beginning of this journey of an article.

“Date Night” progressed as a louder and louder song and Misty’s manner increased in volume as well. Grabbing the microphone stand, he swung it around his head and around the stage, quite frankly similar to a mad man. As much as this factor was impressive, it was not what pushed him over the line of greatness.

In the outro of “Date Night”, the artist matched the music volume with volume of emotion, screaming and crying, “It’s date night baby!” and “Come on!” as the symbols clashed and screamed. The outro went on for a minute like this. A minute nonetheless created a different emotion for all in the audience. Father John Misty’s cries and screams and shouts and dance moves at the end of that song proved that he had voice. As beautiful as his voice is by itself, millions (hundreds of millions) of people have beautiful voices. That song proved he had the character to make a good song into a great song. The rhythm was solid and steady, but his ad libs on top of it somehow made it that much better. Something so indescribable, so unique, is something that he owns that none can buy.