Concert Review: King Tuff at 29th Street Ballroom
On tour following his long-awaited return-to-form record MOO, Kyle Thomas brought his bovine bash to Austin's 29th Street Ballroom on April 26, dispensing frozen margaritas, raccoon anecdotes, and a setlist that proved the King is very much still on his throne.
Written by Noah Keany
Photos courtesy of Wyndham Garret
After fifteen years in Los Angeles and a pair of albums that led him down softer, more atmospheric roads, Kyle Thomas, better known as King Tuff, has made his way back to his battered Tascam 388 tape machine, and emphatically back to himself. MOO, his sixth studio album and his first since Smalltown Stardust in 2023, is a declaration of that return to the scrappy, crunchy, Gibson SG-driven garage rock that sounds reverentially vintage without ever feeling like chasing nostalgic clout. The 29th Street Ballroom, a compact, properly sweaty room, was an ideal arena in which to receive it.
Thomas strolled onstage at 9:01 p.m., greeted by a roar from an already restless crowd. "Finally, King Tuff has returned," he announced, deadpan, before launching into "Twisted on a Train," the wiry, kinetic opener from MOO. The track recounts a surreal overnight train ride from Tucson to Los Angeles, and live it translated into something even more feverish as the room erupted from the first chord. He wrapped it up three minutes later to thunderous applause.
"Wild Desire" followed as the crowd bobbed along at first, not unengaged, but measured, until Thomas crested into the song's bridge and sang upward toward the ceiling of the venue, and the energy in the room surged with him. He pressed on immediately into "East of Ordinary," in which Thomas processed his return to Vermont after a decade and a half away from the East Coast. When the song hit its instrumental break the crowd erupted in woos, and when the final note faded the applause was the loudest yet of the night.
Then Thomas looked out at the Ballroom crowd with genuine curiosity. "You guys got raccoons down here? Y'all ever get into a face-off with one?" An audience member replied that they had, a couple of times. "Oh yeah, me too," Thomas said. "That's what this next song is about." "Crosseyed Critters" is legitimately funny in the way only a songwriter who fully commits to an absurd idea can pull off, was decidedly more laid-back, a breezy detour that the crowd met with an enthusiastic whistle as the first chorus closed. When it ended to roaring applause, an audience member hollered back the song title as if to confirm the moment had happened.
"Freak When I'm Dead" came next, with Thomas mostly stationary on stage, a departure from his usual scurrying, before he addressed the crowd warmly, noting that the last time he had played Austin was 2019 when the Ballroom had previously been called Spider House, proving his commitment to Austin’s ever-changing music scene even as a guest. "OK, next we're going to play some more songs from my album MOO," he announced. "I encourage moos at any point." The crowd obliged immediately, mooing in unison. "Yessss," Thomas replied, and went straight into "Stairway to Nowhere." The crowd cheered during the instrumental section, and when the song ended two minutes later to roaring applause, Thomas pumped a fist and said, "Awwww fuck yeah." The audience responded with more moos.
During the chorus of “Invisible Ink,” Thomas raised a middle finger skyward as the drums soloed for five seconds, and the crowd cheered when the drums dropped out to close the song. He then admitted that the frozen margaritas circulating the room were dangerously good. "I'm starting to lose my voice, I think I need more of these if anyone wants to get me one," he jibed. He announced that the next song was about getting an oil change with no elaboration as the track,"Oil Change," ripped through in two minutes, and when it ended, someone from the crowd delivered him another margarita.
"This song is about my telephone. It's called ‘Landline,’" he announced and then performed exactly that, a MOO track built around a longing for analogue connection, with Thomas and his bassist trading glances during the instrumental section like old friends communicating silently. It rolled directly into "Connection," another telephone song, he noted, before joking that he had no idea why he was yelling so much on stage. After introducing and toasting his rhythm section, drummer Corey Rosé and bassist Noel Friesen, he fed Friesen a margarita, noting that he had earned it in a sly joke.
"Unglued" and "Delusions" followed in quick succession. When "Delusions" closed, all three band members raised their margaritas simultaneously as the audience mooed and whistled. Thomas looked at his cup in genuine amazement. "Holy shit that drink's good!" The crowd responded, simply, "Yeah!"
"Backroads" arrived at 9:50 p.m., the room swaying to its breezy introduction, the sort of dusty, open-road MOO track that reviewers have likened to a therapeutic drive down rarely traveled country highways. Then came "Sun Medallion," the song that Thomas's earliest cult following has been waiting for since his debut album Was Dead first circulated in 2008. Heads bobbed harder, active and insistent, through the instrumental and second chorus. It was one of those moments where a room full of people silently agrees something important is occurring in front of them.
"Black Moon Spell," the swampy, psychedelic title track off his 2014 Sub Pop record, opened with those unmistakable fuzzed-out guitars wobbling with psychedelic swirls. Audience members raised their hands, throwing up rock horns. By the chorus, bodies were moving harder than they had all night, and Thomas turned and played toward stage left, feeding the energy back to the crowd. The song closed just after 10:02 p.m., and without so much as a breath, "Headbanger" ignited immediately from the same moment, no downtime, Thomas leaning toward Rosé as the audience screamed through the instrumental outro. The song, built on the premise of a true connection forged through a shared record collection, was exactly that in practice as a room full of people who grew up on these songs, were reminded together why.
Thomas paused to shout out his band, giving special mention to opener Morgan Nagler, and then delivered the news: "This is gonna be our last one. Thank you so much for coming out!" What followed was "Anthem," the final song of the main set. He swung his hand up, the crowd mirrored him, and he and Friesen played back-to-back as the song built. Before the final run, Thomas prompted the room for one big, collective moo. The full audience complied, clapping, before he launched back in. The song closed with a middle finger raised to the sky and roaring applause from every corner of the room.
The band left the stage, but the crowd did not leave as chants and hollers swelled. Thomas walked back up to his microphone and asked the room if they wanted one more. An audience member screamed for ten more songs. Thomas grinned. "I fucking hate leaving the stage. So I'm not doing it anymore." The encore kicked off at 10:12 p.m., two more songs, including one that saw a random concertgoer rush the stage and crowd-surf to thunderous approval, with Thomas and the audience clapping along as he sang. "Thank you so much! That was our last song." The band drank their margaritas on stage as the room mooed one final time.