23 March 2006 (gig)
26 March 2006
The evening starts with the short walk from Tottenham Court rd station to the Mean Fiddler, the pavement itself covered in massive Kooks stickers (a novel marketing idea). Shouts from the usual mob of tired looking touts fill the air, salivating at ripping punters off for not only The Kooks gig but the, also sold out, Raconteurs gig next door in the Astoria.
We arrive in the venue and catch the last track by new boy Jamie T, bit disappaointed not to hear any more, he sounded pretty good....maybe next time. The Venue itself I've found has always been a bit a bit of a test for bands. The dancefloor layout and balcony arrangement means only about half of the crowd (those perched on the raised dancefloor)get a good view of the band. Bands tend to need to pull out an extra 10% to impress the whole room. The Kooks don't disappoint!
After squeezing onto the dancefloor area, the excited crowd erupted when Luke Pritchard and co walked onto the stage. Instead of starting with an uptempo crowd pleaser there was a low key opener of 'Seaside' the album opener, a simple acoustic number, but a great tune, and sung with such passion and feeling from Luke that when it finishes after a short minute you want him to start it all over again....instead of which though they launch into 'See the world', and the whole crowd can do nothing dance along.
The scene was then set set for the evening,the whole crowd lapped up every song the Kooks played.The extensive touring theye been through has obvioulsy payed off as these lads sailed accomplishedly note perfect through their
set,quite bravely disposing of the big singles 'Sofa Song' and the current (massive grower) single 'Naive' quite early on in the set.
The Jangly positive indie pop sound these guys have could almost persuade you it's midsummer outside.They play with conviction and quite obvioulsy enjoy what theyre doing,and are by no means just going through the motions.They
manage to bring to life even a couple of the less stand out tracks from the album,and also chuck in a great rompalong new song 'Looby Lou'.The set closes with 'You don't love me' and after only about 40 minutes or so,they leave the
stage.It left me wondering what they had left to pull out of the bag for an encore,having played all their singles.They came back on and played the amusingly titled 'Jackie Big Tits',which goes down a storm,then rather
dissapointingly follow it up with 2 lesser known tracks,one called California,not sure on the other one,probably great for hardcore Kooks fans,but if you ask me a group can never really go wrong saving their best 'till last ( I wonder if Motorhead have ever not finished with 'Ace of Spades'
?!!)
All in all,after turning up having listened to the album a few times and being moderately impressed,the Kooks won me over big time with a great energy rush of a set that even took my mind off the 3.40 for a can of warm red Stripe....
Come the summer,after a couple of the singles have been reissued and triumphed,you won't be able to go to a beach party or barbeque without the Kooks turning up...........
