Entering the Solus nightclub I quickly realised that this is a band destined for bigger things. A crowd made up of predominantly teenagers and men taking their girlfriends eagerly awaited the bushy haired seasiders to take stage.
Judging by the screams it was show time, first on stage guitarist Huw followed closely buy a hooded Luke and the rest of the band. True to form the opening tune for the evening was the albums opener “seaside”. Luke still with a wizard-esq hood up and a somewhat smaller than average acoustic kicked off proceedings with a flying start. “Seaside” ran quickly into “See The World” as does the album and the show was already sending the kooks loyal into a frenzy of glow sticks and bobbing hairdo’s. The atmosphere around the venue was one similar to that of the last day of school as the younger crowd involved themselves in the next tune for the evening “Matchbox”. One o f the albums highlights “eddies gun” followed to add even more screams to an already fever pitch state. Luke’s voice and onstage performance makes it quite easy to see who's in the driving seat of the kooks movement. Remanisance in appearance to a young Bob Dylan Luke covered the stage from centre to the wings much to the excitement of the large female following.
The set included an airing of some new tunes as well as the album fillers, first of which was “Luby Lou”. A typically sounding kooks tune but a sound of this enthusiasm isn't to be knocked. This is a band on top of its game at the moment oozing in confidence as the bands hit single “Naive” paid no real importance in sets order much to the surprise of the crowd all expecting it to be curtain closer on the kooks experience. The encore continued with pace including “Jackie Big Tits” and the punchy “You don't love me” but again a signal of the bands confidence came in the form of another new tune “pull me in” to close the evening much to the disappointment of the now much over excited following.
New bands with such presence and unique sound don't come around very often so I imagine these lads will fill the void for a long time to come.
by Neil
