- Fri, 2007-07-20 11:13
Kasabian live @ The Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
I love this! I can see the whites of your eyes!
Pre-festival warm up gigs are generally referred to as 'intimate', inferring a certain jolly cosiness, gently cuddling up to your musical icons in a small comfortable setting.
But there's nothing cuddly about this gig. Nor Kasabian for that matter.
Tonight's show has all the impact of a head-on car crash. From the get-go, tunes slam into the face, in the nearest approximation of Spector's wall-of-sound or early Oasis (when they sounded like the Sex Pistols rather than the Beatles).
Kasabian isn't a complicated beast, but it's a beast nonetheless. This isn't music to pontificate over, to debate or intellectualise. This is music for the masses. Music to go apesh*t to. And the 400 lucky punters crammed into the Wedgewood Rooms tonight do exactly that.
In fact, it's a miracle Kasabian's blaring glam rock dance racket doesn't blow the doors off the tiny venue as the foundations and roof strain to contain tunes of such planet sized massiveness.
Tom gurns, grins, swears and sweats through almost the entirety of the 'Empire' LP and most of the choice cuts from their eponymous debut. And, just as his shoes seem to keep getting pointier, his jeans skinnier and his posturing ever so slightly more camp, his voice just gets sweeter.
Playing second fiddle to his strutting rake of a singer, Serge - in his 'girls girls girls' vest - is the epitome of such effortless cool he could carry off one of Lovefoxxx's shiny catsuits.
The momentum eases for Serge's acoustic rendition of 'British Legion' only to intensify further with 'Stuntman', beginning like a thunderous version of Uhuru's 'Open Your Mind'. 'Doberman' is gigantic as usual and - with it's wild west trumpet solo - as mad as a box of hair.
Eventually the aural blitzkrieg relents, and, whilst brains still rattle inside skulls and ears ring with the refrain of closer 'LSF', the band beam huge smiles and embrace each other and the front row.
So, as we wring the sweat out of our t-shirts and make for the last train home, Kasabian zoom across the Solent on a private speedboat to sonically assault the Isle of Wight Festival with their big, dumb, glorious rock and roll. And it's a wonder the tiny little island doesn't buckle beneath them.
Review by Chris Waugh
