We are pleased to announce that we have sold 63% of the tickets for our May 19th show at Three Wise Monkeys in advance, which is over 100 tickets sold with roughly 70 still available to purchase.
We will be back in Unit One tonight to continue to build our set for the show, which will be recorded for a brand-new live album with Talon Payne of Gallow Wood Media, and an accompanying video. Joining us will be Osmium Guillotine, Killerkorp, and Heathen Kings Tickets are still available to purchase from here.
We are pleased to announce that we have sold over 100 tickets for May 19th, 2023, at Three Wise Monkeys, Colchester. These sales take us to just under 60% of the total capacity weeks ahead of the show. Thank you for supporting this event.
We will be recording a new live album on the night, which has been put together to celebrate the 5-year anniversary of the current Kaine line-up coming together. Playing the night alongside us will be Heathen Kings, Killerkorp and Osmium Guillotine.
There will be a special one off t-shirt for the gig (above) which will be limited to just 50 shirts. We will be back at Unit One, Colchester for rehearsals tonight to prepare for May 19th.
Kaine will be celebrating 5 years of the Reforged line-up with a special gig, and live album recording at Three Wise Monkeys, Colchester on Friday, May 19th, 2023. Joining them will be guests Osmium Guillotine, Killerkorp, and Heathen Kings.
The current incarnations of Kaine formed in May 2018, and have since released two studio albums Reforge The Steel (2019) and After Extinction (2022) as well as the Extinction After EP (2023), Kaine EP (2021), Falling Through Freedom X EP (2022), The Waystone EP (2020) and two live albums. The band has headlined Colchester Arts Centre, opened Burrfest at a sold-out Dome in Tufnell Park as well as toured the UK in support of the legendary Lillian Axe and Riot Act in 2022. Recently the band supported NWOBHM legends Trespass and Cher/Whitesnake Guitarist Joel Hoekstra alongside Brandon Gibbs of Devil City Angels and Poison fame.
This week’s rehearsals at Unit One will be purely in preparation for May 19th. The band plans on debuting some new tracks for the event, which will be recorded for a new live album by Talon Payne of Gallow Wood Studios.
Advanced tickets for the event are still available here.
We will be celebrating 5 years of the “Reforged” line-up of Kaine in May on the 19th at Three Wise Monkeys, Colchester. Tickets have already started to sell well and we have already sold 20% of the allocation available. This event will be filmed/recorded for a video and live album release.
As stated in previous posts, we’ve not rehearsed in several weeks due to Liam suffering with a significant injury. To his credit he has still played the last two gigs in that state, one being a 2-hour set in Sheffield and the other a gig down in Kent a few weeks back, but we agreed it would be best to try and limit what he did while he was in pain. He also recorded his drums for the Falling Through Freedom EP in that period.
We’ve still been very busy, we’ve signed and sent out the album pre-orders on CD, we have finished recording the Falling Through Freedom EP, we’ve been working on getting the artwork finished for both EPs with the Extinction After EP completed and Falling Through Freedom on its way. The new art for the EP will on the t-shirt/patch for the 2022 Patreon package. Again, we are sorry for the delay on both.
By next Friday, I will have finished tracking vocals for Extinction After, having completed the Falling Through Freedom vocals last week. As stated previously, recording and finishing an album and two EPs in one year has been the most work I have ever done with this band, especially given we had a tour thrown in a few months back!
Our last rehearsal session on October 30th
Today we’re back to rehearsals, focussing on our gig at the Brewhouse, Colchester next week and getting our set together for that, plus ensuring we’re up to standard in terms of playing together. We’ve never played the Brewhouse before either, so I am looking forward to it. We are playing alongside Heathen Kings and Osmium Guillotine so the night will have a very traditional Metal feel. The gigs on Friday next week, and it’s free to get into from 7pm.
I am hopeful we can try and get back to a normal gigging routine next year, however with costs rising in the UK and with yet more tax increases announced this week, it’s going to be interesting to see how bands and venues survive in 2023. It could be the toughest year yet.
We are pleased to report that Liam now feels able to return to rehearsals and we will be back in Unit One on Sunday to resume regular rehearsal sessions. He has been suffering from a trapped sciatic nerve and subsequent muscle-related issues in his back. He had recorded, and played the last two gigs in serious pain, and had requested some time off to recover. We’ll be working on our set for the Brewhouse show this weekend.
Our first gig was on May 26th 2018. It was one of our regular shows there as I had booked a reasonably busy schedule that year to help promote A Crisis of Faith. We arrived at the venue early and were chatting outside prior to load in when Dan Mailer and Josh Birch arrived together (from Osmium Guillotine) pulling up in the carpark, I had a half empty bottle of Coca-Cola which I was able to throw through the passenger window, past Josh’s head and straight into Dan’s face as he pulled up. Dan, looking for revenge, jumped out of his car and came charging up the B2 steps towards me, having forgot to put his handbrake on, turning to see Josh and his car going for unplanned trip into the Brickmakers beer garden!
From one of the early shows in Camden
The other amusing moment from that gig was the late great Wayne MacConnachie had arrived with Peter Keliris for the gig, he looked at me, looked at the guys and said “where’s ya band” obviously having not heard the news, I said to him that this was the band, he looked at me, looked at them “your fucking joking aren’t you?” I said the others had left the band and he was gobsmacked “they left you? They all left you? They all fucking left you?!”. Wayne simply couldn’t believe the last line up had left! That was sadly the last time I saw Wayne alive and were informed of his passing on the way to the Reforge The Steel Live recording gig in November 2019. We played a tribute to Wayne alongside Osmium Guillotine and Walk in Coma in January 2020 in Braintree.
Gent aka local legend Andy Martin opened the night, and Osmium Guillotine obviously also played. Dan Mailer jumped on on stage with us for the encore and all in all it was a successful first gig with very few mistakes. I think we genuinely shocked a few people. The band was formed in a fortnight and was already playing live, and to a good level, the transition seamless from the previous line-up.
An early B2 Show
Our next gig was a charity event in Long Melford, famous for being the place the legendary Hellfire Club was founded and much of the local folklore surrounds nefarious activities by the local nobles at Melford Hall. It is also famous for Beatrix Potter having stayed there. The gig itself was for our friend Bonnie Kelly’s fathers best friends memorial – Bonnie has her own band New Pages which can be checked out here. Toby and Isaac had to perform double duty as Cannon were also on the bill. Chris MacKinnon was also doing sound that night, obviously unable to stay away from us! After that we played the Unicorn in Camden for the first time. We would play a few gigs there in 2018 which were all really good, but weirdly after that we were never invited back! Kaine actually hadn’t played the gig since 2013 when we supported Canadian Metal legends Striker there! Again the gig went well and the band started to gel on stage.
After that we played with Alter the Sky at the Blue Moon, Cambridge. This is another venue we used to play a lot back in the day when it was the Man on the Moon, we even had a residency there for a bit in 2013. Again the show went incredibly well and people struggled to believe that this was a brand new band. We also started playing songs from Reforge The Steel around this time in the set as well. We were literally rehearsing, learning the Crisis material and adding new material into the set as well which really helped progress the Reforge The Steel album quickly.
Our one and only appearance at The Rock Den!
It was in this period that I wrote the 8 tracks for Reforge The Steel at home. I decided that to prove the band wasn’t dead and this band was as good as ever, I had to get a new album out as quickly as possible. I wrote Reforge The Steel, Black and Rebirth first, Wake was a song and I and Saxon Davids started working on some years previous that we even played live in instrumental form toward the back end of 2017, and songs like Master of Mankind and In Cold Light were written later with Loudwire being the last one I think I wrote for that album. It was important to show the world that we were still going and that is why Reforge The Steel came out so soon after A Crisis of Faith. We just learned the new songs between the Crisis material, and then played them live to iron out the cracks. It was a very busy period for the band. I had also started a new job around that time, which was less all over the place then the warehouse work but infinitely more stressful!
We had another gig at the B2 in July. Anthony Murch joined us for a few songs that night and a solo trade-off on stage, which I part inspired the ending of Master of Mankind! As Ant arrived the venue I was able to sneak around his car with a traffic cone, and block his door off so he couldn’t get out of his car! Is it any wonder people leave my band….Having looked back at the dates we had a very busy 2018! We were back at the Unicorn that month and also played our first and only gig at The Rock Den in Hatfield, another venue we’d previously been a resident band at.
Adam’s old band Cardinal
At the end of July we played Swanfest at the Swan, Ipswich in what was one of the hottest gigs I have ever played. Long term band friend Adam Prowse (who had played bass in Cardinal) joined us for the encore on vocals. The Swan is famous for having Ed Sheeran play there before he was famous. Ed recently having sponsored Ipswich Town Football Club, my football team and is famous for other things, but for me that’s the most important! Much like me he’s a regular at Town games, but at least he has a successful musical career to drown out the misery! It’s good to see him plough some money into the club under the new owners, but having said that if the club dropped any lower then I could have probably afforded to buy it, let alone sponsor it!
From The Smokehouse, Ipswich
So I thought I would give a little detail on our early gigs as a band. It’s weird to think this was all three years ago now. I will cover the back end of 2018 and the start of the recording of Reforge The Steel next week.
Kaine will be supporting Rhabstallion On July 9th, Battleaxe and Stormbringer or October 1st and Troyen + Stormbringer on October 23rd. It will be Kaine’s first ever appearance at the venue. Click the links above for ticket and event information.
Kaine will be playing their first two post-lockdown shows at two new venues coming up. The first will be at The Music Room, Ipswich (a new venue) on May 22nd. This will be alongside Arms to Oblivion and Brazen Bull and is close to selling out. All tickets from the cancelled 2020 show at this venue will be honoured if claimed early. Click here for ticket information.
The second will be the bands debut at CODA Colchester alongside long term gigging buddies Osmium Guillotine and Mercury Rising on July 14th. This event is free entry from 8pm and can be attended by clicking here.
Kaine will return to work on the new album this weekend at Pioneer Music in Colchester.
Despite Essex being in Tier 2 Lockdown rehearsals for bands are still legal in the county and Pioneer is still open for business. Earlier this week the Police were called to Pioneer after a tipoff to investigate Osmium Guillotine’s rehearsal there, however all the correct COVID measures were in place and everyone was adhering to the rules so no action was taken.
Last weekend a set of new band pictures were taken by Rachel W. Photography which can be seen on her Instagram page.
