Member Review: Kings of Leon

BPD subscriber xxxbaker writes:

The big question on everyone’s minds was how would lead singer-guitarist Caleb Followill look and sound?

The answer is that the rest appears to have at least done Caleb’s voice some good even if he looked a little shaggy with facial hair and appeared, along with the rest of the group, pretty tentative for most of the night.

The southern-fried garage rockers kicked off their hour-and-40-minute performance with Radioactive from their 2010 album Come Around Sundown but it was as if a lot of the joy had left the group.

They seemed to keep their energy contained within themselves instead of sharing it with each other or the audience.

The first flub of the night came about six songs in when they started, then stopped, then restarted the normally anthemic Fans for reasons that weren’t clear.

The crowd was forgiving, however, gamely singing along on the next new song, Back Down South, as the two video screens on either side of the stripped down stage showed waving fields of wheat and back roads, before joining in on the old favourite Milk which was followed by another slow-tempoed number Arizona.

Slowly, the band started to find their footing with Slow Night, So Long, Molly’s Chambers and Closer as the large three-paneled video screens behind them finally came to life but they never really set the place on fire until the top of the first hour with On Call and Knocked Up, which both prompted crowd clap and singalongs.

Then it was time for the mother of them all - Sex On Fire - which closed the set before a five minute break leading into the lively encore of The Bucket, the anthemic Use Somebody and Black Thumbnail which ended the evening punctuated by fireworks and firebursts.

I would say that the show was C+. Maybe they need more time off, I don't know. They were cordial backstage to me but it felt that fans were more of a bother than anything else to them right now.