22 March 2026, King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut
A visit to King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut has yet to disappoint over the years we’ve been going there. There’s always a special atmosphere generated in the venue irrespective of who is playing, and you sense that the acts have created a special rapport with the audience through previous tours or record releases.
An evening with Jehnny Beth was no different aided and abetted by the selection of Benefits as their support act.
Benefits
Over the past couple of years, I’ve now seen Benefits three times and if you need a short description of their set, it would be along the lines of …. Benefits wear their social and political views on their sleeves for all to see and hear.
Social commentary with a poetic delivery to a background of a surging, hypnotic soundscape.
The thought provoking, hard hitting, words are supplied by Kingsley Hall who gives his heart and soul into delivering messages that resonate with the audience in front of him.
The sonic backdrop is provided by multi-instrumentalist Robbie Major a bank of keyboards and electronic gizmos, ebbing and flowing in perfect harmony to the visceral words coming from his partner’s microphone.
Over the past few months I’ve seen Soft Play, Big Special and now Benefits deliver similar sets. Three duos. Three acts providing social commentary of the hear and now. Messages that each audience appreciates and approves of. And yet, in identifying what is wrong across the world, you sense that little will ever change.
Benefits deserve a bigger stage. Catch them while you can.
Jehnny Beth
Jehnny Beth you may ask. Who is she?
Previously the lead vocalist of 2010s post-punk band the Savages, invited to open up for Depeche Mode, Queens of the Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails, collaborated with both Gorillaz and Idles, and recorded an album of duets alongside Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, the 2021 Utopian Ashes. With that musical CV behind her, you can understand why King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut was crammed full in expectation of a dynamic show.
And dynamism was the abiding memory of the set she and her band delivered. She bounced across the stage, she bounced into the crowd, she knelt on the upstretched arms of the crowd. She had the audience eating out of her hands with charm, personality and a delivery style that was provocative, that holds nothing back, that gave the audience every ounce of herself for the hour or so she was on stage.
Watching someone give so much of themselves for their music is compelling viewing and listening. This wasn’t someone going through the motions because they had an album to promote. It wasn’t someone delivering a favourite set of tracks from a back catalogue that the fans wanted to hear. Jehnny Beth sang songs that genuinely matters to her. Songs that she wanted the audience to share and be part of. In every aspect of this desire, she can declare the night as a total success.
It would be remiss not to mention the band that provides the soundtrack to her vocals, Johnny Hostile (guitar), Wendy Killmann (drums),and Hughes Rive (bass) were as tight as any I have seen of late providing the angular dimension that lifted the tracks from the album to a higher dimension.
They all left to the sound of loud applause and cheers ringing in their ears and like Benefits above are definitely ones to look out for in the future.
