King Tuff rocks the MOO-sic Hall of Williamsburg

It was the kind of spring day that pretended to be summer. The sun was setting slowly over the city skyline as the thermometer on my phone read 85 degrees. The streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, were full as the city made the most of their beautiful Thursday night. I made my way through the waterfront’s busy streets on my way to the Music Hall of Williamsburg to see King Tuff and his opener, Morgan Nagler.

The venue is sandwiched between a Patagonia store and a high-end jewellery store. The whole Williamsburg waterfront area has turned into a strip mall for the very rich. The small venue (its capacity must be less than 1,000) sticks out against its high-end neighbours. Due to the gentrification of the area, the rent for the concert space has become too high, and it will shut its doors at the end of 2026.

Every show this year is one on the farewell tour to a brilliant venue that may not live long enough to witness the downfall of the Ticketmaster/Live Nation monopoly. Following my tour of window displays full of items I could never afford to buy, I arrived at the Music Hall of Williamsburg some thirty minutes before the opener, Morgan Nagler, was set to kick off the show. There was no line waiting to get in, so I went through security alone. The door team here has always been the kindest I have ever experienced, and on this April night, it was no different.

When you first walk in, you can either go straight down to the bar or take a left up to the auditorium hall. I walked a lap of the venue, exploring the whole space and committing it all to memory in case I can only come a few times before it’s gone. Downstairs, you walk into a room that surrounds a thin horseshoe bar at the centre. Across from the apex of the bar are the bathrooms, and on either side is space to sit or stand and hang out before or after a show. When you come around the bar, you can head back upstairs into the lobby of the theatre, where you can find the merch booth, another bar, the exit to the smoking section, and the double doors leading into the auditorium.  

Morgan Nagler came on right after 8 PM to a sparsely packed floor. Many of the fans had decided to arrive during her set, so the floor slowly filled as she performed. She played solo, just her voice and an electric guitar. She was confident and expressed herself easily onstage. Her authenticity was extremely endearing, and by the end of her set, she had old fans and new fans alike singing along with her in a call and response.

Nagler told stories between songs, explaining one song about her mom calling to tell her that her dad was on acid and another about how she discovered the Daniel Johnston song, “Hey Joe,” she was about to cover. The best song of her set was “Hammer and Nail“. The room was fairly crowded by the time she played this track, and she had the audience enrapt. The song paired wonderfully with her stripped-down style, and she sang each word with an emotional flourish.

King Tuff didn’t make the crowd wait, his three-piece band came on with little delay just after 9 PM and charged into the new album’s, Moo, most upbeat song, “Twisted on a Train“. From there, the foot never left the gas. Even playing through the new album’s more plodding number, “Crosseyed Critters,” the tempo and energy were high.

At the heart of the show’s high energy lay the musicians. The drum and bass thirds of the trio, in particular, beat out a roaring and complex rhythm that totally eliminated the need for any other instrument besides Kyle Thomas (King Tuff’s alter ego)’s lead guitar. The bass player stood off to stage right and grooved in his corner as he laid down line after line of funky swingy goodness. The drummer sat centre stage, with Thomas taking stage left, and she pummeled the drums into submission, keeping beautiful time and looking to each musician in turn as she paved the road of each song.

Thomas prowled in his corner for his solos, bending almost in two as he bent the notes expressively. The only sign of the years Thomas has spent as a figure of rock and roll was on his voice, which didn’t pack the same falsetto punch it had in years past.

The crowd was a standout player in this show as well. To find an example of the ideal crowd etiquette, one must only look to the King Tuff show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. It is hard to decide if it should be attributed to one more than the other or if both should share credit, but the venue and the artist seemed to attract an extremely respectful crowd. The tallest guys stood in a half circle around the back of the audience. An audience which followed its ring of giants with a layer of the more stoic concert goers, which themselves gave way to the rowdy pit around the front of the stage. Each ecosystem was unique and allowed to flourish in its own area.

The cherry on top of the perfectly laid banana split that was this crowd was, that no matter what section of the audience you stood in, there was not a phone in sight. Every now and then, someone would take a picture or a quick video, but the prevailing ideal in the room was that phones being out while the artists were performing was bad form. One concertgoer described it as a “liberal band for a liberal audience”. And both rocked out liberally. There was not a song in the setlist that didn’t make me groove in my spot amongst the stoics. The guy standing in front of me couldn’t keep himself still as the music overcame him, and he danced the second half of the show away.

After playing for close to two hours, the band ducked off stage to continue the time-honoured tradition of the encore. The crowd began chanting the name of King Tuff’s newest album, Moo, to encourage the trio to return to the stage. After some prolonged mooing, the band relented and came back out to deliver a proper encore, a cover of someone else’s song. King Tuff ended the first show of their tour by playing Tom Petty’s “You Wreck Me” before finishing the night off with a song from Tuff’s first album, “Bad Thing”. The show was high energy and extremely fun, though the audience favoured music lovers rather than casual concert goers with its strict adherence to concert etiquette, anyone could find a place to rock out at a show like this. If they’re playing in your town, I suggest making it out for a show.