Cardiff International arena 05/07/07

Its a family affair tonight as the KOL rock n roll bus pulls up to play their biggest sold out gig to date which surprised many, but coming straight from the cropped horse’s mouth who are we to argue.

The CIA has quite a stage to fill to but the KOL set was well up to scratch. A back drop from the new album cover coupled with stand alone boxed light bulbs the stage looked ready for the Tennessee based Followill family to shatter the next hour or so with their sleazy southern rock blues. Taking stage it took a while to spot lead singer Caleb due to his tightly cropped new hairdo, trade mark skinny jeans and a red vest. Thankfully, tonight is all about the music which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be the CIA’s strong point as again the sound didn’t do the KOL any justice at all.

Throwing pints at a band that you’ve paid twenty five quid to see no matter how much I think about it still doesn’t seem to add up. KOL frontman obviously getting annoyed with the situation was well within his rights to say what he did that went something along the lines of, “If you see someone throwing beer up here again punch them in the f**king face”, right on brother! It’s really not a good look and let’s just hope it doesn’t put them off coming back as for the first time in ages it actually felt like you were seeing real rock stars. The kind that when you were young thought came from out of space and definitely weren’t normal people like me and you.

A set list and band of this calibre really deserve more than the CIA could offer but all the same the KOL didn’t fail to deliver with a performance tighter than Caleb’s jeans. A set list made up of tunes from all three records and crowd favourites Molly’s Chambers, The Bucket and Milk were tremendous in every sense of the word. The Pixies sounding Charmer could have quite easily took the roof off during the encore with the right PA system but never the less the KOL gave the capital a master class in four to the floor good old fashioned Rock n Roll.

If its Kings of Leon karaoke (vic n bob style) that floats your boat there was only one place to be last night, and I think myself and the other couple of thousand that were will be glad they took part. If your lucky enough to get the chance to see these lot in a festival this year make sure you do you won’t be disappointed.    

words by Neil and photography by Jay to see photos from the gig click here

Black Thumbnail
Taper Jean Girl
King of the Rodeo
True Love Way
My Party
Soft
Fans
Arizona
Molly's Chambers
The Bucket
Milk
Four Kicks
On Call
California Waiting
Spiral Staircase
Trani

Knocked Up
Charmer
McFearless
Slow Night, So Longist