Post by sasori1378 on May 26, 2012 1:16:42 GMT
Finally getting the chance to sit down and write about the show last week in Melbourne (was it really only just over a week ago? Feels like forever ago already!). But, because I am essentially lazy, I figure there is no need to reinvent the wheel, and because my memory is shocking I am cheating and am pasting in a review of the gig that I found online at tonedeaf.com.au written by Anne-Louise Hill, and will add in my own bits in colour so you will know what are my thoughts! Warning: All the links to my photos and footage are all really blurry and wobbly – you have been warned!! :0)
Kaiser Chiefs
16th May 2012 @ Palace
It was a tough decision for music lovers last Wednesday, with Boy and Bear, (If you ever get the chance to see these guys – do it – they are amazing – totally different to Kaiser Chiefs, but just amazing live!) The Maccabees and Kaiser Chiefs all choosing the same night to put on a show. Each playing at Melbourne’s premiere venues (The Forum, The HiFi and Palace respectively), but one solid crowd chose to pack themselves into the mosh pit and balconies of the Bourke Street localé to welcome back Kaiser Chiefs, and their new album, to our shores.
Touring as a part of Groovin’ The Moo, it hasn’t actually been that long since last Kaiser Chiefs graced our shores with their energetic presence. Frontman Ricky Wilson acknowledging this fact after kick-starting the show with fast-paced favourite “Na Na Na Na Naa” and new track “Kinda Girl You Are“. (After the Dire Straits “Money for Nothing” opening, they went full on, straight into a super high energy “Na Na Na Na Naa” – what a great opening! It was the song that got me hooked on the boys so it was nice for me to hear it live for the first time :0) )
“It’s been five minutes since we were last here. We had to go home and do a bit of homework – learn some new songs!” Wilson exclaims, after introducing themselves with the house lights blazing bright golden; and the ball doesn’t stop rolling for the next ninety minutes. (One of those bloody golden lights shone right into my eyes through most of “Na Na Na Na Naa”, didn’t see much of the band for that whole song! Light show was extremely bright and strobe-y again so hard to take photos, and made it a bit hard to see the band, would be interesting to see how it looked from further back, but I wasn’t moving from my barrier position to find out!!)
The devoted audience are all as much a part of the Kaiser Chiefs as the fellows from Leeds are themselves. Groovin’ the Moo is comparatively a longer-lasting festival to play, and as the finish line is in sight, with the final leg of the tour in Bunbury, it’s taken a bit of a toll on them, and it shows.
Wilson still excels at leading both band and crowd with his charismatic, inoffensively arrogant banter but occasionally slumps over his mic stand or leans heavily on various amps across the stage for a tad longer than expected. (I’m glad she mentioned that, cause I actually thought a couple of times that Ricky seemed tired – it was certainly not reflected in his energy during the songs because you couldn’t fault that – and I actually thought maybe I was reading too much into it! I read in another review that he was “battling injury and illness” so if he was, gee, he put on an amazing show!! A few other reviews said the gig lacked energy but I beg to differ – I thought it had as much energy as the other gigs I had been too. Simon seemed to be jumping and moving around quite a bit more than usual too I thought
) )
No matter though, because a flick of his hair and a few pumped up jumps on the spot later, Wilson gets right back into it with sky-high energy as “I Predict a Riot” stays true to its title, with the floor bending and stretching with the swarming mosh.
“This one’s a new song… Yeah, I can see you, shaking your head,” says Wilson, pointing an unseen female member of the audience, “You can go. This one’s for her, she’s gonna fucking love it!” We’re treated to new tracks from their latest effort, The Future is Medieval, including first single “Little Shocks” and “Starts with Nothing.”
Later, “Modern Way” shrouds the room in a deep blue doona, echoing cow bell and Simon Rix’s fantastic bass strumming. (As per most gigs lately (I think) Ricky got Peanut out front to chat and start the clapping for “Modern Way” – I’ve put the footage on youtube – here’s the link – youtu.be/ZDZXcDmCq9k it’s hard to hear but he’s talking about how “he was meant to come out flying on a harness”!)
Wilson exits the stage for an all-too-brief band jam under glowing gold and purple lighting before returning – fresh beer in one hand and sweat-sodden towel in the other – for crowd favourite, “Ruby.”
The chorus is gleefully reverberated by the crowd, positively drowning out Wilson and co’s own vocals. “Never Miss A Beat” swiftly follows without, as one could guess, ever missing a beat. By which point Wilson takes a break by running through the crowd, straight to the bar where he stands atop and asks for a drink. (This was during the start of “Take My Temperature” – one song I got in full – here’s the link: youtu.be/FTIoCHDsvsA ).
Receiving another beer, Wilson drinks half and scoffs, “I’ma need something stronger than that, I need a shot of Jack Daniels. You know we’re the Kaiser Chiefs, right? We’ve come a loooong fucking way!” and promptly downs the amber liquid in one gulp. He takes the stairs two at a time to the first level of the mezzanine, (all the while the lads held back on-stage by their with instruments, are playing a rock ‘n roll-y type of elevator music), to hang with the folk up there and generally make sure everybody is having a good fucking time.
His run back to the stage becoming a swagger as he declares, “we’re about to put the icing on the cake and, maybe if you’re lucky, the cherry,” he cheekily winks as they begin to finish with the curiously addictive new single, “Listen to Your Head.” Upon finishing, the ever-humble Wilson claims, “you can all say now that you saw the biggest fucking song in the world played.”
(When they came back on for the encore Ricky started singing the Spice Girls “Wannabe” into the mic – “I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want!” before saying something like “I don’t know why I did that!”. This isn’t my footage but someone has put it on youtube: youtu.be/nE_cdp6RvKo)
The inevitable encore includes “Love Is Not a Competition (But I’m Winning)” putting the crowd right back into the palm of Wilson’s hand, along with some strong backing vocals by drummer and principle song-writing Chief, Nick Hodgson, and dreamy guitar solos by Andrew “Whitey” White. (This was about the only other song I filmed in its entirety – thought I had filmed “Starts with Nothing” which was amazing but turns out my camera was on standby the whole time – doh! – Anyway – link to Love’s Not A Competition is here youtu.be/pEdDpBywdP0 – first time I have heard this live and it was great – it took me a while to work out what song it was!)
There’s an endearingly awkward musical interlude as the band talk amongst themselves before Hodgson explains to us, “Basically, we’re having technical difficulties.” Laughter ensues from the rest, giving Wilson another chance to show off his tambourine tricks before yelling, “this song is called “Oh My God”” (I got footage of this too – here’s the link: youtu.be/ge4uyBBx7k4 as bad as my memory and hearing is I am positive I heard Ricky say, after they were mucking around trying to sort it for a while, “let’s just do it anyway” but I can’t hear that on the footage.)
The crowd, expecting this as the final encore song, loses it and follow word-for-word. It’s certainly a shorter version than everyone hopes for but nevertheless take hold of the final sparks of electricity in the room tightly, as the band take one last bow and wave goodbye.
After Splendour last year, they’ve certainly stepped up their stage show. Although they play all the hits (literally almost every track heard tonight is present on their recent collection, Souvenir: The Singles 2004-2012) they do so faithfully and with few surprises – apart from Wilson’s entertaining antics. (At one point Ricky had both his tambourines on the ground, put a foot on each one and started tambourine skating across the floor – another review commented on “Wilson’s increasing intoxication” but I didn’t think it was that at all – if anything it was more like when you are so tired you become silly and hysterical!)
That being said, they keep the ardent fans stoked. Here’s hoping they remain regulars on the increasingly smaller Australian festival scene.
- Anne-Louise Hil
(Missed out on a setlist again – but thanks once again to another guy who got one and let me take a photo of it! The setlist was:
Na Na Na Na Naa
EIAN
KInda Girl You Are
Good Days Bad Days
On The Run
EILYLAL
Little Shocks
IPAR
Modern Way
Angry Mob
Starts With Nothing
Ruby
NMAB
Take My Temperature
Listen To Your Head
LNAC
Oh My God
Another amazing show – feel so privileged to have seen them again, twice in three weeks and three times in less than 8 months. In the last half of the show I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face, was so thrilled to be there. Didn’t take as much footage or photos as I normally would just because I wanted to be there and enjoy it, rather than watch it through a lens – but having said that my memories are fading already!! I have put some of my crappy photos on photobucket here: s1170.photobucket.com/albums/r528/jane1378/Kaiser%20Chiefs%20-%20Melbourne%20May%2016%202012/ or you can see some professional photos I found here: s1170.photobucket.com/albums/r528/jane1378/Kaiser%20Chiefs%20-%20Melbourne%20-%20Professional%20shots/
Well, after all that buildup it is all over again for me for who knows who long – looking forward to hearing all about future concerts, seeing photos and hearing stories from you all!
Kaiser Chiefs
16th May 2012 @ Palace
It was a tough decision for music lovers last Wednesday, with Boy and Bear, (If you ever get the chance to see these guys – do it – they are amazing – totally different to Kaiser Chiefs, but just amazing live!) The Maccabees and Kaiser Chiefs all choosing the same night to put on a show. Each playing at Melbourne’s premiere venues (The Forum, The HiFi and Palace respectively), but one solid crowd chose to pack themselves into the mosh pit and balconies of the Bourke Street localé to welcome back Kaiser Chiefs, and their new album, to our shores.
Touring as a part of Groovin’ The Moo, it hasn’t actually been that long since last Kaiser Chiefs graced our shores with their energetic presence. Frontman Ricky Wilson acknowledging this fact after kick-starting the show with fast-paced favourite “Na Na Na Na Naa” and new track “Kinda Girl You Are“. (After the Dire Straits “Money for Nothing” opening, they went full on, straight into a super high energy “Na Na Na Na Naa” – what a great opening! It was the song that got me hooked on the boys so it was nice for me to hear it live for the first time :0) )
“It’s been five minutes since we were last here. We had to go home and do a bit of homework – learn some new songs!” Wilson exclaims, after introducing themselves with the house lights blazing bright golden; and the ball doesn’t stop rolling for the next ninety minutes. (One of those bloody golden lights shone right into my eyes through most of “Na Na Na Na Naa”, didn’t see much of the band for that whole song! Light show was extremely bright and strobe-y again so hard to take photos, and made it a bit hard to see the band, would be interesting to see how it looked from further back, but I wasn’t moving from my barrier position to find out!!)
The devoted audience are all as much a part of the Kaiser Chiefs as the fellows from Leeds are themselves. Groovin’ the Moo is comparatively a longer-lasting festival to play, and as the finish line is in sight, with the final leg of the tour in Bunbury, it’s taken a bit of a toll on them, and it shows.
Wilson still excels at leading both band and crowd with his charismatic, inoffensively arrogant banter but occasionally slumps over his mic stand or leans heavily on various amps across the stage for a tad longer than expected. (I’m glad she mentioned that, cause I actually thought a couple of times that Ricky seemed tired – it was certainly not reflected in his energy during the songs because you couldn’t fault that – and I actually thought maybe I was reading too much into it! I read in another review that he was “battling injury and illness” so if he was, gee, he put on an amazing show!! A few other reviews said the gig lacked energy but I beg to differ – I thought it had as much energy as the other gigs I had been too. Simon seemed to be jumping and moving around quite a bit more than usual too I thought
) )No matter though, because a flick of his hair and a few pumped up jumps on the spot later, Wilson gets right back into it with sky-high energy as “I Predict a Riot” stays true to its title, with the floor bending and stretching with the swarming mosh.
“This one’s a new song… Yeah, I can see you, shaking your head,” says Wilson, pointing an unseen female member of the audience, “You can go. This one’s for her, she’s gonna fucking love it!” We’re treated to new tracks from their latest effort, The Future is Medieval, including first single “Little Shocks” and “Starts with Nothing.”
Later, “Modern Way” shrouds the room in a deep blue doona, echoing cow bell and Simon Rix’s fantastic bass strumming. (As per most gigs lately (I think) Ricky got Peanut out front to chat and start the clapping for “Modern Way” – I’ve put the footage on youtube – here’s the link – youtu.be/ZDZXcDmCq9k it’s hard to hear but he’s talking about how “he was meant to come out flying on a harness”!)
Wilson exits the stage for an all-too-brief band jam under glowing gold and purple lighting before returning – fresh beer in one hand and sweat-sodden towel in the other – for crowd favourite, “Ruby.”
The chorus is gleefully reverberated by the crowd, positively drowning out Wilson and co’s own vocals. “Never Miss A Beat” swiftly follows without, as one could guess, ever missing a beat. By which point Wilson takes a break by running through the crowd, straight to the bar where he stands atop and asks for a drink. (This was during the start of “Take My Temperature” – one song I got in full – here’s the link: youtu.be/FTIoCHDsvsA ).
Receiving another beer, Wilson drinks half and scoffs, “I’ma need something stronger than that, I need a shot of Jack Daniels. You know we’re the Kaiser Chiefs, right? We’ve come a loooong fucking way!” and promptly downs the amber liquid in one gulp. He takes the stairs two at a time to the first level of the mezzanine, (all the while the lads held back on-stage by their with instruments, are playing a rock ‘n roll-y type of elevator music), to hang with the folk up there and generally make sure everybody is having a good fucking time.
His run back to the stage becoming a swagger as he declares, “we’re about to put the icing on the cake and, maybe if you’re lucky, the cherry,” he cheekily winks as they begin to finish with the curiously addictive new single, “Listen to Your Head.” Upon finishing, the ever-humble Wilson claims, “you can all say now that you saw the biggest fucking song in the world played.”
(When they came back on for the encore Ricky started singing the Spice Girls “Wannabe” into the mic – “I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want!” before saying something like “I don’t know why I did that!”. This isn’t my footage but someone has put it on youtube: youtu.be/nE_cdp6RvKo)
The inevitable encore includes “Love Is Not a Competition (But I’m Winning)” putting the crowd right back into the palm of Wilson’s hand, along with some strong backing vocals by drummer and principle song-writing Chief, Nick Hodgson, and dreamy guitar solos by Andrew “Whitey” White. (This was about the only other song I filmed in its entirety – thought I had filmed “Starts with Nothing” which was amazing but turns out my camera was on standby the whole time – doh! – Anyway – link to Love’s Not A Competition is here youtu.be/pEdDpBywdP0 – first time I have heard this live and it was great – it took me a while to work out what song it was!)
There’s an endearingly awkward musical interlude as the band talk amongst themselves before Hodgson explains to us, “Basically, we’re having technical difficulties.” Laughter ensues from the rest, giving Wilson another chance to show off his tambourine tricks before yelling, “this song is called “Oh My God”” (I got footage of this too – here’s the link: youtu.be/ge4uyBBx7k4 as bad as my memory and hearing is I am positive I heard Ricky say, after they were mucking around trying to sort it for a while, “let’s just do it anyway” but I can’t hear that on the footage.)
The crowd, expecting this as the final encore song, loses it and follow word-for-word. It’s certainly a shorter version than everyone hopes for but nevertheless take hold of the final sparks of electricity in the room tightly, as the band take one last bow and wave goodbye.
After Splendour last year, they’ve certainly stepped up their stage show. Although they play all the hits (literally almost every track heard tonight is present on their recent collection, Souvenir: The Singles 2004-2012) they do so faithfully and with few surprises – apart from Wilson’s entertaining antics. (At one point Ricky had both his tambourines on the ground, put a foot on each one and started tambourine skating across the floor – another review commented on “Wilson’s increasing intoxication” but I didn’t think it was that at all – if anything it was more like when you are so tired you become silly and hysterical!)
That being said, they keep the ardent fans stoked. Here’s hoping they remain regulars on the increasingly smaller Australian festival scene.
- Anne-Louise Hil
(Missed out on a setlist again – but thanks once again to another guy who got one and let me take a photo of it! The setlist was:
Na Na Na Na Naa
EIAN
KInda Girl You Are
Good Days Bad Days
On The Run
EILYLAL
Little Shocks
IPAR
Modern Way
Angry Mob
Starts With Nothing
Ruby
NMAB
Take My Temperature
Listen To Your Head
LNAC
Oh My God
Another amazing show – feel so privileged to have seen them again, twice in three weeks and three times in less than 8 months. In the last half of the show I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face, was so thrilled to be there. Didn’t take as much footage or photos as I normally would just because I wanted to be there and enjoy it, rather than watch it through a lens – but having said that my memories are fading already!! I have put some of my crappy photos on photobucket here: s1170.photobucket.com/albums/r528/jane1378/Kaiser%20Chiefs%20-%20Melbourne%20May%2016%202012/ or you can see some professional photos I found here: s1170.photobucket.com/albums/r528/jane1378/Kaiser%20Chiefs%20-%20Melbourne%20-%20Professional%20shots/
Well, after all that buildup it is all over again for me for who knows who long – looking forward to hearing all about future concerts, seeing photos and hearing stories from you all!
