“Merry fucking Christmas.”
As ever, Tom Meighan is buzzing, and with the toss of a tambourine into the crowd, Kasabian‘s frontman is the one handing presents out tonight. Yet his tireless, boundless onstage energy more accurately brings to mind a sugar-fuelled child receiving the presents on Christmas morning; careering downstairs two-at-a-time to check for half eaten mince pies, missing carrots and a tree bulging full with gifts. And like every doting parent watching on, we the audience are all too happy to be swept along in the magic during our own special night of festivities.
Indeed, after a manic ‘Fast Fuse‘ had melted into a brilliant, unexpected ‘Misirlou‘ (now known forever as ‘that tune from Pulp Fiction‘) with the command “Let’s go Tarantino”, Kasabian proceeded to lead the Sheffield Arena through a campy rendition of ‘Jingle Bells‘ to probably the biggest sing-a-long of the night; just to get the season’s merriment coursing through the crowd’s veins even more.
An hour or so earlier, and the evening had in fact gotten off to a slightly damp start. Opener ‘Days Are Forgotten‘, with its strangely flat, world-weary chorus is one of the few Kasabian tracks to hint at struggle and sits uncomfortably at the top of the setlist, but ‘Shoot The Runner‘, all brain-dead lyrics and gun-shot beats so big they could knock the Earth out of orbit, soon has the tone of the gig cemented.
The lazy ‘lad rock’ label which is so often assigned to Kasabian cruelly ignores the virtues of a band which takes its inspiration just as much from 1980s US hip-hop pioneers and late 90s dance as it does from the more straight forward rock teachings of Oasis, T. Rex and The Rolling Stones. The influence of Run-DMC, Prodigy and Fatboy Slim pervade the night, be it on the hugely strung out, trippy breakdown which curtails ‘Underdog‘, the dreamy, other worldly “no-one is here” refrain of ‘I.D’, or the utterly bonkers, 70s video nasty which is ‘Switchblade Smiles’.
It’s not all bass dominant, 100mph mania though, and there’s ample opportunity to catch breath on the understated, relaxed sing-a-long of ‘Where Did All The Love Go’, and with Chris Edwards adopting a McCartney Bass ™, ‘Thick As Thieves’ goes deep into mid-60s psychedelia, aptly summoning up the spirit of ‘Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’-era Pink Floyd, with the simple, every-man melody of ‘Rubber Soul’ Beatles.
As Tom Meighan briefly departs, presumably to be strapped down to a chair backstage for re-fuelling, Serge Pizzorno takes centre stage to push the gig back into top gear on ‘Take Aim’, and proves to be just as much the engaging frontman – all wiry, flailing limbs and simian bounce – while breakthrough single ‘Club Foot’ remains the staple Kasabian track, with the blueprint of trudging drums and riff-heavy supersonic guitar being the genesis for all the good work which has followed it.
An encore which begins with ‘Switchblade Smiles’ takes the gig to another level thanks to ‘Vlad The Impaler’, the true rabble rouser of ‘West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum’, which has a 10,000-plus throng bouncing in complete, unbroken unison, threatening to lift the arena from its very foundations. Final track ‘Fire’, another gradually building march which grows into Kasabian’s most euphoric chorus, is the consummate crowd pleaser, tonight delivered note perfect – the kind of set closer most bands can only dream of. The elongated outro could probably still be going on now, but eventually the band wrench themselves from the stage having offered up more gifts of drumsticks, setlists, and most glaringly, a night of pure unpretentious, rapturous entertainment. Merry fucking Christmas? Absolutely.
For some, all this Christmas talk might seem a bit premature. You may already be sick of the back-to-back festive-themed adverts, the endless repeats of Only Fools and Horses specials, and the unmistakable wailing of Noddy Holder punctuating the background chatter of every high street clothes shop. But for Sheffield, and probably every other city Kasabian will roll into on this UK arena tour, having just experienced an evening with arguably the best live band currently in operation, it’s hard not to still feel caught up in that child-like seasonal magic.
When making our ways back into Saturday night, with the bright lights of city centre decorations cutting through the coal-black winter sky, we’re sure in the knowledge that from now on Wizzard are not the only British band who make you wish it could be Christmas every day.
No LSF last off!!
amazing gig but where they played songs like goodbye kiss and man of simple pleasure’s which are a couple of the weaker tunes from velociraptor songs like acid turkish bath and i hear voices as well as other strong songs from the self titled album were made redundant.They have been better when i have seen them previous with setlists but they do always deliver the goods show wise and performance wise.
The Jumpers!!!!
No mention of Serge’s La Fee Verte……sureal, loved the whole gig 🙂 Velociraptor presents new edge to Kasabian, who knows what they will come up with next, very exciting…..