Kasabian, Brixton Academy, London - 15 August 2006

Brixton Academy, London - 15 August 2006

"It's me, Renton"

Picture taken on my camera phone - well you had to be there

Tout poster Matt bought me after the gig (£2)

UPDATE: Reviews: The Sun, NME, The Telegraph and The Independent

Also, enjoy a clip of the Club Foot performance. Can you feel the mosh?




ORIGINAL POST:
My my, how these lads have grown. Playing Ibiza, appearing on David Letterman, touring the UK... and they've only just finished puberty! The first time I saw them was last year at the O2 Wireless Festival (see below) and even though I only knew 2 songs, by Lord they blew me away. Tom Meighan, lead singer extraordinaire, was humble and had amazing stage presence - would they deliver again? Has rock superstardom gone to their heads thus effecting their performance?

First up, Tom Meighan looked different - he came onstage in a red sweater and tight drainpipe jeans - very Renton-ish off Trainspotting. And boy did he swagger about onstage - definitely at the Jim Morrison phase of his career. The boys did not disappoint and the crowd went wild! If you ever listened to Kasabian on your radio, you would never think that their songs would attract a mosh-pit crowd. But their songs, when transferred on to a live stage, made every person want to body surf, and the crowd up-front surely tried, much to the annoyance of security who had to pull quite a number of body-surfers out of the crowd. I was at my usual safe spot to the right side of the stage standing on the podium-ish bit where I could see it all unfold.

The boys definitely did have more cock in their rock and churned out the hits as well as songs from their new album. It never dawned on me that they had a lot of stadium-anthemy songs (e.g. Butcher Blues - "I just Can't Stop Losing Control" over and over again) . Tom Meighan - well I couldn't decide if he was drunk or high - like I said, his mannerism was very Renton-ish but he is still a humble boy from Leicester deep down as he thanked the crowd profusely after each song and dropped to his knees several times as if thanking the Lord for all of the band's success (high??). In a surprising twist, instead of ending with "Club Foot", that was the penultimate third last song and they ended with a rapturous performance of "L.S.F ("Lost Souls Forever)". Long after the concert ended, the crowd were still wailing repeatedly all the way to the tube station.

They only played for an hour and a bit which was quite disappointing but I guess being a warm-up gig, that was the whole purpose. Andy, who was with us, enjoyed the gig despite not knowing that many songs and moshed away with Matt and the rest of the crowd.

Oh and Tom Meighan, despite the skinny drug addict look, well, I still would.

See you at Earl's Court in December hopefully!!

"I'm on it, get on it"