Review of The Kaiser Chiefs at The Olympia Theatre on August 23rd 2011
Review: Vanessa Monaghan
Photos: Sean Smyth
Kaiser Chiefs rolled into The Olympia on August 23rd in support of their current album ‘The Future is Medieval’. An early start and two great openers mean we’re in for three hours of music and still don’t have to race down the street for a last bus.
It’s seven thirty start and getting proceedings going were The Aftermath. The now five piece line up, complete with female backing vocalist, have nailed their 21st century indie Brit sound. Starting off with ‘Are You Not Wanting Me Yet?’ they treat the growing crowd to a solid set featuring tracks from their ‘Friendlier Up Here’ album. Frontman Johnny Cronin is an amicable character thanking the crowd for showing their appreciation with ‘You’re mighty, Bless yiz’.
As their set progresses, the band show themselves as confident performers and give a new single ‘In Loneliness’ an airing. For this one, sax player Daire O’Reilly is brought onto stage and the extra layer gives their already full sound an extra boost. Great opening set.
I hadn’t seen Royseven before. I knew they had an album a couple of years ago and were back with with a new one and their song ‘Lover’ has been all over the radio this Summer. Where I was wrong though was assuming that the radio hit belonged to a nice little pop band. Royseven are a whole lot more.
The first striking thing is that they know what they want to look like. Singer Paul Walsh waves a Royseven flag as the band come to the dark stage, accompanied by striking white light and a pop star reception from the audience. Royseven are a lot rockier then my preconceived thoughts had imagined. The melodies and hooks remain intact, their guitars hold a little more Grr! than on record. From the opening strains of ‘Every Line’s The Last One’, the band have the audience claps and singing on command.
I love when a band wows, they deliver the unexpected and Royseven did just that. Every song they play in their set is as strong as the next and there are no weak links. Musicianship and performance is top drawer stuff and Paul Walsh is a fantastic front man. He dances round the stage like he is enjoying and keeps egging the crowd on to give more. Musically, his vocals are purely stunning, there’s a certain eighties pop quality to them but with the band’s instrumentation, are perfection.
They play the next single ‘No Romance’, which is followed by ‘We Should Be Lovers’, which sends the crowd into overdrive. There’s no let up as they head straight into the upbeat slightly punky ‘You Say, We Say’ and its ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah’ refrain is easily sung back to the band. ‘Dance’ gets the hands in the air while they end with ‘Killer’. I had one word, Wow, seriously impressed by Royseven, it’s official I think they may be my new favourite band. Awesome!
The Kaiser Chiefs had a lot to live up to following Royseven. ‘Everyday I Love You Less and Less’ kicks off and seems a little less happy than on record. Ricky Wilson jumps around the stage with a mic stand which throughout the night gets jumped on, hit with a drumstick and thrown in the air. The audience respond by jumping in unison to the Leeds band’s sound.
There’s no messing around with the Kaisers, they have a concise set, featuring all the hits and some new material. ‘Little Shocks’ follows ‘Never Miss A Beat’ as Wilson declares ‘We are The Kaiser Chiefs, still’. Wilson is an unusual front man, sometimes throughout the night he moves around the stage in his own little bubble like no one is watching. It gets away with it though, the slightest gesture towards the audience and they are under his spell.
There’s not enough cowbell in rock. The Kaisers do their best to rectify this with ‘Modern Way’. At one point it seems that half the members have one. Material from ‘The Future is Medieval’ goes down well and ‘Man on Mars’ sounds great live. It’s also a great track to highlight the importance of Nick Hodgson as drummer and vocalist in the band. We won’t forget he’s also the main songwriter. To give Hodgson his time in the spotlight, they actually do put a spotlight on him.
The Kaisers are as you would expect for a band of their stature, a tight outfit with good musicianship. They play a solid set but it’s when they play the bigger hits that things take off. ‘Ruby’ has the crowd on a high screaming back the lyrics to the stage. Capitalizing on this, ‘The Angry Mob’ has the audience hands in air, during which Wilson has his back to the crowd singing to the drum-kit. A nice break down and build up again keep the crowd happy.
A frantic ‘I Predict a Riot’ has the crowd going nuts, jumping and singing like their lives depended on it. It seems that this was a little spark for Wilson who seems to have gotten an extra lease of life.
As they play the uptempo ‘Kinda Girl You Are’, Wilson is clapping his hands with the drumbeat wandering around the stage. He comes to the edge and during ‘Take My Temperature’ indicates to the crowd on the balcony that he’s coming to visit them.
Wilson disappears from the stage to re-emerge in the boxes to the left of the stage, just below where your intrepid reporter is sitting. The crowd are loving this as Wilson leans over singing and egging everyone on. Leaning over to see what’s going on, the nice security guard tries to keep us for leaning too far forward. Wilson is giving it socks and now sits between booths with his legs dangling over the side. Instead of taking a tradition route back to the stage, the front man climbs over the front of the box behind speakers and end up back on stage to a hero’s return.
The strains of Olé Olé fill the auditorium, The Kaiser Chiefs come back to the stage and now it seems a happier Ricky Wilson starts singing some Black Eye Peas’ ‘I’ve got a feeling..’ I’m not sure if the audience were supposed to react like they did but they start singing the pop hit back to him. They play another track from the new album, which stands up well before finishing the night off with ‘Oh My God’. They definitely got better the further into the set they went.
Overall there were three good bands on the night with almost three hours of music. It was a really good night’s entertainment. Kaiser Chiefs were very good as were the openers,The Aftermath. For me though, Royseven stole the show.