Live Review: King Prawn - Waterfront, Norwich
23rd May 2025
Support: Dumbfoundus
Words & Photos: Tom Atkin
What a weekend. The weather is glorious, and the ska greats King Prawn are back in Norwich. With a club night scheduled afterwards, it’s pretty early doors tonight and with another performance down stairs at the Waterfront there are plenty of people about. King Prawn are playing upstairs in the trusty non air conditioned Studio this evening, which means it is going to be incredibly warm.
First up are East Anglia’s very own Dumbfoundus, a group that used to mostly focus on covers, however they are starting to branch out into original material. Right off the bat, this band are just some of the most chilled people seen on the stage here. Their roots lie with the skater scene and they bring a great mix of beach pop, reggae, with a bit of ska/punk sprinkled on top.
Harmonica and lap guitar (I believe it is called a lap guitar) included, they are perfect warm up for King Prawn. Quite literally in between songs getting the crowd to warm up various body parts so we are all limbered up before King Prawn hits the stage and with the age of most people here, I would say this was probably a great idea.
A moment that stood out was an absolutely incredible cover of “Heart Shaped Box” by Nirvana, one that it could be said is better than the original. Sacrilege maybe, but we can’t deny it.
The Waterfront Studios stage fills up quickly, with King Prawn and theirs even members there is not much room. Despite the show clashing with Slam Dunk weekend there is a great turn out of obviously die hard fans.
With the immense heat in the Studio, people were definitely already warmed up and the skanking started as soon as “Numeration Dub” kicked in. This started with about a quarter of the crowd but the moment “Caught Inna Rut” started playing, the skanking quickly spread throughout the crowd.
It was a jammed packed set, twenty nine songs of great Ska music, spanning the whole of their career. “Take Me Back”, “U Fake” and “Level Up” managed to get the rest of the crowd moving. Normally when there is a bit of a sparse crowd, there is movement in front of the stage by the people that are really in to the moment and those towards the back, are very much toned down. Not tonight though, King Prawn have got people skanking all over the room.
All the fan favourites were played, “Someone To Hate”, “Racist Copper”, “Day In, Day Out” and “The Dominant View” sound just as good as what they did years ago. The energy level stays consistent throughout the whole set, which is noticed by the audience as well. People that were originally keeping themselves out the way are now moving into the main area in front of the stage and getting involved with the main skanking pit, sweat pouring off them but it is just pure enjoyment throughout.
The show had a Curfew of 10pm and as approaching that time though there was a few noticeable songs left out.
But that did not matter; 10pm came, and went and they continued playing, giving us “Smoke Some Shit”, “Not Your Punk” and “Survive” amongst the final remaining songs. These are the songs that people were expecting earlier on, and now we know why we hadn’t heard them yet.
Even with this being the end of the set that earlier energy was still at fever pitch through out both the crowd and the band!
Photo Credit: Tom Atkin
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