It's safe to say the expectations for Kasabian as a live act are getting quite big.
Their albums maybe frustratingly inconsistent, but as a live act, they certainly have the chops.After all, they are now big enough for the headline slot at Glastonbury Festival - not only that but closing the festival as well, to boot - and will be preceding it with a 50,000-capacity outdoor homecoming show in Leicester.
Before that is a more smaller affair, in the grand surroundings of the Shepherd's Bush Empire theatre for War Child, who have made the Leicester band this year's charity gig after previous events involving Muse, Coldplay and The Killers. The efforts here have certainly helped raise cash for the charity, while members for charities associated with War Child and people they rescued are also in attendance.
This show is also the London launch party for 5th album 48:13, and there may have been a temptation to play the whole thing, not least given it currently tops the UK album chart.
However, they don't do that. After the raucous opener Bumblebee, Kasabian instead dip back into the hit parade. A snippet of Kanye West's Black Skinhead is a perfectly weighted introduction to the classic snarler Shoot the Runner, before the one-two of Underdog and Where Did All The Love Go continues the party.
Co-frontmen Tom Meighan and Sergio Pizzorno are in typically buoyant mood, barking out lyrics and commands to go nuts that the masses in front of them respond to with gusto. The moshpit is a sea of limbs bouncing in time to the strain of the works, and there isn't a single song in the entire set that they stay still for.
There are indeed moments when it seems the crowd is bouncing in time to the crack of drummer Ian Matthews' snare drum, which the crowd moshes heavily no matter which members of the large rotating cast are on stage at once.
In all, some 14 members are on stage during the headliner's set - the 4 main members, plus de-facto members on keyboard, trumpet and lead guitar, along with a 4 piece string section and 3 female backing vocalists who dip in and out of proceedings. You don't get the sense, however, that they don't want to be there. All of them approach their roles with gusto, with Meighan and Pizzorno in particular bundles of energy on a stage much smaller to those they have played in recent years.
This good mood and mixture of players allows a variety of pleasing textures to seep out of the stage. The contrast is certainly felt between string-led tracks that pepper the set, the classic electro-indie-styled tunes and the 48:13 material. This includes one-two of lead single Eez-eh and likely future single Stevie appears a few songs down the line, with the former much than recordings from live shows suggested, while the latter is an improvement of the inconsistent album version.
Later down the line, the band also dispatched the sprawling Treat - an almost seven minute mishmash of indie, rap, electronica, psychedelic rock and everything inbetween. On record, its an entertaining mess, but here, with Pizzorno bouncing around the stage wielding maracas and heavy duty strobe lights bathing the venue, its a highlight.
This series of new material also fit in with the hit parade Kasabian have cultivated. A heady rush of Days are Forgotten and Processed Beats keeps the crowd singing and dancing, while there's also diversions into electro (the spindly yet supple ID) and mariachi (Take Aim, which is delightful but ruined by a far-too-teasing snippet of Empire closer The Doberman as an intro).
One early quibble was the bass being nothing more than a series of faint rumbles, although its mercifully resolved for the snappy, snarling Club Foot, which sees Chris Edwards' 4-string fill the room with that monstrous riff.
The main set concludes with Kasabian's best-known tune in the form of Fire, where it feels that the entire room is in a frenzied delirium, singing and dancing like its life depends on it.
But its not done yet, and if Switchblade Smiles is a decent start to the encore, Vlad the Impaler - dedicated to the late Rik Mayall, who died last week - is astonishing. The bass and guitar riffs are loud enough to start earthquakes, while the crowd reponse - despite everything - is possibly the best of the night so far.
And there's still time for the crowd to go even more mad, as a cover of Praise You gives way to L.S.F. - a final run-through of the classic song that used to close all the gigs.
It says a lot about how much they've improved live that Kasabian can afford to leave out their best song in the form of Fast Fuse, plus similarly impressive material like Cutt Off, Stuntman, Thick as Thieves and many more, and yet the gig does not suffer. Its an effortless snapshot of the band's 10 years in pop culture, that is almost effortless at exciting the impressive crowd.
Its not a perfect night, but very close to it. They may still be indecisive on record, but the live arena is where Kasabian made their name, and shows like this prove exactly why.
Leicester and Glastonbury will be in for some exciting treats.
4/5
Opening proceedings were Merseyside-based 5-piece The Sundowners, who even had a Miles Kane/Alex Turner lookalike on lead guitar. The band's twin female vocalists do provide a nice verve to proceedings, which divots over a variety of sounds even despite the suspicion the guitars have been either turned off or very low. Final song Medicine does hint at promise that they could be bigger, and there is certainly enough to entertain before proceedings get underway.
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