Kings Of Leon: Live at the 02, December 11th 2010
Review by Vanessa Monaghan
Photos by Alessio Michelini
Arriving at the 02, I was treating this gig like an exam for Kings of Leon. I hadn’t seen them live before and was sceptical of whether they would be able to headline a venue like Slane in 2011.
The Whigs arrived on stage and didn’t do a huge amount to boost my confidence. The Atlanta, Georgia garage rock band opened their set with ‘Already Young’. The band made the most of the KOL on stage lighting set up with warm tones throughout the track. The three piece seemed to lack connection with the audience a little. I put this down to their stage layout, drums at the back, bass player on the left and lead vocalist/guitarist, Parker Gispert on the right. The right side of the audience seemingly connecting more with the singer.
The band played tracks from their current album ‘In The Dark’, including ‘One Hundred Million’. It opened with a solid drumbeat and was dominated by Julian Dorio’s rhythms, making me wonder if he was in the right band as he seemed more suited to a harder rock band. ‘I Am For Real’ featured a nice bass line but the band failed to have an extra spark, seemingly caught between genres. Not garage enough to be garage and not rock enough either.
A surprise was on the way though, ‘Half the World Away’ from the band’s first album saw the singer leave his guitar and move to keys on the left of the stage. The bass player, Timothy Deaux, then moved to to the right to play guitar. Wow! Someoff key synth sounds, gave a far more interesting vibe to the band, topped with a bass player who can play a mean lead guitar. This band I like. The set ended with ‘Dyin’, all the band’s instruments combining for a melee of sounds before ending with a simple guitar. Finish off with a pose in front of a wind machine and we’re sorted.
Kings of Leon arrive to the stage to a rapturous response, launching into ‘Radioactive’. Never mind the music, immediately noticeable is their interesting stage set up and visuals. Drums and amps sitting on very stylized metallic risers and a backdrop of metal parts on a grid, doubling as lights. Visuals on screens either side of the stage are of immense quality, special effects and editing as if this was a live DVD. Excellent.
It doesn’t take a whole lot for the audience to be lifting the roof. Going straight into ‘Crawl’, the audience sing every word. Musically the band are flawless, they don’t chat or interact with the audience much though. It’s not until after ‘Molly’s Chamber’, which featured some awesome guitar playing that the lead singer, Caleb Followill introduces the band.
A disco ball is slowly lowered from the ceiling during ‘Homegrown’ which gets the best response of the night so far. The acoustic lead track showing how the KOL could easily lean towards country. This again becomes apparent later in the night with ‘Back Down South’.
Tracks from the latest album ‘Come Around Sundown’ get an airing. ‘Mary’ and ‘The Immortals’ go down well, while ‘Notion’ from ‘Only By The Night’, lifts the roof once more with it’s audience singalong. Onstage, the metallic grid moves and the backdropped screen moves to a lower position, leaving the lights higher and occasionally blinding us on the balcony.
The band play tracks to the sold out auditorium and it seems everyone knows the words to every song. The fan reaction to ‘No Money’ gives a good indication that KOL should be able to handle Slane. Looking at the standing crowd below, they could be in a field going nuts, if KOL got half the reaction from the Slane crew, they would still be doing extremely well. The tempo remains upbeat for the the punky ‘Four Kicks’. This is more like what I thought The Whigs would sound like.
Caleb speaks to the crowd again, thanking The Whigs and asking if the crowd were having a good time. The opening bars of ‘Pyro’ have him ask if the audience if they know it to ‘help us out’. Hand claps unite the stage and audience during the current single.
Sometimes there is no need for him to even utter a word, the audience are doing all the singing for him. There isn’t a lot of movement from the musicians, they play their instruments and the crowd go nuts. ‘On Call’ gives bass player, Jared Followill, a chance to shine and also features a great guitar solo from cousin Matthew.
A quick breather allows chants of ‘Olé Olé’ to reverberate around the building and also gives time for a quick tune up. Caleb does a shot and says how the band have been counting down the days til they came back to Dublin, it felt like coming home. He thanks the audience for being ‘a huge part’ of the KOL career.
An extended ‘Knocked up’ proves to be a fan favourite, hands in the air, the crowd goes nuts as the song builds up. The ‘oooh oooh’ refrain is being sang from the opening notes an in unison the the entire standing area moves their arms from left to right on command. ‘Use Somebody’ keeps the anthem theme going and the audience level of frenzy reaches World Cup winning level. The devotion that the audience have is unmissable. The band leave the stage to deafening roars of approval.
There’s quite a long break until they return to the stage, leading us to wonder how many shots they had each. ‘Closer’ was an interesting choice of song to open an encore, more downbeat than its predecessors. That doesn’t stop the audience giving 110%. The band still seem as cool as cucumbers, just doing their thing, playing their music.
The opening guitar notes of ‘Sex on Fire’ lifts the 02 to another level, almost a uniting religious experience. ‘Black Thumbnail’ closes the evening leaving the audience completely elated. As for me, Kings of Leon play their music flawlessly live and the entire audience hang on every note. I think Slane should be more than ok. I’ve been converted.
