On Thursday night, before the Stone Foxes, I caught a set by the Janks at the Bootleg Theater and although I had seen their name around (they had a residency at the Satellite not very long ago), I had never seen them live, and I really don’t know how I managed to do this, because they have played 250 shows only this year and more than 400 in diverse clubs of this town! They have been around for a while, with different line-ups, and they were even joined last year by Paul Kilmister on bass — you get it, Lemmy’s son — although he has apparently left the band since…
My Janks-less live experience was entirely repaired on Thursday night, as I was front row to watch them deliver their songs with a very muscular attitude, a true rock & roll spirit, demonstrating they were the type of band that could easily destroy a place in a blues-rock turmoil with the help of long screaming guitar solos,… and honestly, they were quite efficient at it! For an opening band, they had managed to gather a large crowd, and if the atmosphere was already stuffy and sweaty before they even played, it didn’t slow down the show to say the least. It was a release party for their new EP ‘Living in Denial’ (following their 2012 debut album ‘Hands of Time’) and it looked like they had built up a strong following with many devout fans occupying the first rows.
They are a Los Angeles band, fronted by two brothers, Zachary Zmed on guitar and vocals and Dylan Zmed on mandolin and vocals, and with bassist Nate Light and drummer Leon LeDoux, they certainly proved they could go places… but if you want more Z’s to throw into your rock & roll brew, the first big name which crossed my mind is a big one, Led Zeppelin! Sure there also were brotherly harmonies and some of their songs were sometimes giving up on the toughness to get a bit more emotional and uplifting during ‘Lucky Stars’, but even the harmonies were soon back to the screaming mode and the guitars to the full arena rock show, with the expected head banging effect…
It would be an understatement to call their performance dynamic, it was mayhem and chaos, although nobody got lost in the process. After a few songs, it was a stomping heavy game of bluesy rock & roll, with wet-hair-shaking, and sweat running through opened shirts, but they didn’t forget about the hooks, and their title track is a good proof of that… They could even get super heavy, aggressive in the empowering sense of the term, with killing monster riffs and they were totally triumphing with ‘All Mine’ or ‘Old Enough’ and its Black Sabbath heaviness…
The Janks are an unsigned band, and at a time when most bands try to re-invent new and old genres while taking themselves very seriously, the Janks deliver some straightforward southern rock, packed into a sweat-drenched show. Why should anyone even resist?
Setlist
All Mine
Millionaire
Living in Denial
Lucky Stars
Beating
Demon Dance
Rat racers
Edge of Love
Old Enough
More pictures of the show here.
