On the night that the glitz of the Brit Awards came to London, 2006 winners the Kaiser Chiefs played to a packed Portsmouth Guildhall crowd.
Supported by the up-and-coming Fixers and All The Young, the Fixers kicked off the night with their unique brand of psychedelic beach indie pop, showcasing their laid-back synths and percussion as they rattled through tracks from their upcoming début album We’ll Be The Moon. The quintet are from Oxford, but their music and eccentric clothing suggests they would better suit an Australian bar.
Where the Fixers’ latest single, ‘Iron Deer Dream’ had displayed the band’s captivation with the music, All The Young proceeded to elevate the atmosphere to near fever pitch. The four-piece from Stoke-on-Trent and their lead-singer Ryan Dooley in particular, who managed to wear thick shades throughout the performance, expressed a remarkable amount of moodiness yet charm as they rattled through what is becoming an extraordinary back-catalogue of singles for a band that is still in its early days. With energy and guitars abounding, ‘Welcome Home’ got even those still in their seats hyped up for the main event. All The Young were clearly enjoying their last night in support of the Kaiser Chiefs and are surely to play more of the same in the future.
Finally, the Kaiser Chiefs assembled on stage for the main event. Ricky Wilson and co. flew through energetic versions of ‘Everyday I Love You Less and Less’ and ‘Never Miss A Beat’ before playing ‘Little Shocks’, one of four tracks to be taken from the Kaisers’ fourth and most ambitious album project: The Future is Medieval.
Despite the outrageous age of significant elements of the audience, the Guildhall was a throw-back to the energy and enthusiasm of the mid-noughties. With the Kaisers back in their prime, there was never a lyric missed by the adoring crowd and Wilson bounded across the stage with youthful exuberance; moving from repeatedly launching his microphone stand and tambourine into the air during the opening sequence, to perching on a speaker during ‘Modern Way’s lyrics of loneliness and despair.
All in all, the Kaiser Chiefs are one of the outstanding British bands of our generation; a status they are thoroughly deserving of. Their raw energy, enthusiasm, and ability to write a catchy lyric demonstrated itself time and time again across the evening as the band pulled out all the stops on ‘Ruby’, ‘The Angry Mob’, and, the final track of the night, ‘Oh My God’; their first top ten hit. With Start the Revolution Without Me being released in America at the beginning of this month, the Chiefs are still alive and kicking, reminding this writer that the Band’s singles still hold a timeless ability to captivate audience’s of any age.
