Gig review: Kasabian at O2 Academy Leeds
There’s no holding back from the Leicester band on a night to launch their latest album.
Serge Pizzorno is prowling the stage like a caged animal. In a moment his bandmates will launch into the opening bars of Soulmate, one of the highlights from Kasabian’s new album Act III. The audience, already primed by The Beatles’ Hey Jude booming out of the O2 Academy’s PA before the band come on, will go wild.
By their second number, Club Foot, the place will be bouncing amid a hail of beer and pogoing.
Really, record shop outstores aren’t usually like this. Normally a vehicle to promote an artist’s latest album by airing a handful of tracks that are unfamiliar to most listeners, with the addition of a couple of ‘greatest hits’ to sweeten the pill, they’re often relatively sedate affairs.
But here Kasabian, the Leicester rock band once described as “a mix of The Stone Roses and Primal Scream with the swagger of Oasis”, rip up the script with a 70-minute performance of such vitality that you almost forget this isn’t one of their regular tour dates.
Since the sacking of original vocalist Tom Meighan, Pizzorno – the band’s songwriting mastermind – has really come into his own as a frontman, constantly geeing up the crowd and throwing his rangy frame across the stage in a blur of energy. He expresses his gratitude to their Leeds fanbase, who have been there for many memorable gigs throughout the years, and gives a shout out to one of Kasabian’s two guitarists tonight, Rob Harvey, former leader of local heroes The Music.
There are nods to their new album – their ninth in a productive 22 years – with its most commercial tracks Hippie Sunshine, Nothing Better Than This and Superpowers. But for the most part tonight’s set is a succession of crowd-pleasers – Underdog, Days Are Forgotten, Shoot The Runner, Empire and You’re in Love With a Psycho standing testimony not just to their longevity but to Pizzorno’s quirky compositions as they often spin off in several directions within one song yet remain immensely catchy.
Release The Pressure, originally a collaboration with DJ and producer Calvin Harris, points firmly to the dance floor, but Stargazr is motorik space rock. LSF (Lost Souls Forever) finds them at their most anthemic and Oasis-like.
Still, there’s time for a three-song encore which concludes with another anthem, Fire, which Claudio Ranieri used to power up Pizzorno’s beloved Leicester City en route to their 5,000-1 Premier League title triumph.
Quite simply, this outstore has to be up there with Crash Records’ best.