It’s been far too long since we have had some fresh and exciting rock band visit us in Johannesburg. Sure we had U2 and Coldplay, but the last of the more edgy rock bands will have been Oasis or Muse.
Needless to say I snapped up tickets when the Kings of Leon show was announced only to end up waiting half a year when they postponed it to 29 October 2011. It was well worth the wait though.
Supporting Acts:
The Black Hotels
I have seen these guys before, and blogged about them before (check my first Parlotones review). They have come a long way since then and sounded much better this evening. One thing that was clear this evening was that the opening bands were at least given a great sound system for the stadium and came across very well from a sonic point of view (Springbok Nude Girls sounded appalling opening for U2 in the same venue).
Shadowclub
There is a lot of hype around Shadowclub in local media, with their debut album ‘Guns and Money’ recently released. I can understand why – they have a great hard rocking sound going on. They are a power trio who have some great songs and excellent music ability.
Die Heuwels Fantasties
This band put on a good show, but for me at least were over-shadowed by The Shadow Club (no pun intended). But I could see that conversely, for a lot of the audience, this was the best SA band on show tonight.
Kings of Leon:
With all the media stories about a Caleb meltdown, I really did not know what to expect. What we got was a real rocker of a show!
The stage was quite simple, but really effective, with some split screens and lights set up that worked extremely well, never detracting from the music or the performance.
The bulk of the material came from ‘Only by the night’, but they threw in some earlier songs, the second song they played being ‘Taper Jean Girl’.
The audience was amazing, singing along to a lot of the songs: ‘Crawl’, ‘Closer’, ‘Revelry’ and then almost drowning out the band with ‘Sex On Fire’.
I have found that now since seeing them played live, the songs off ‘Come around sundown’ work better for me. It was not initially an album that had the same impact with me as ‘Aha Shake Heartbreak’ or ‘Only by the night’, but now it is making more sense.
The band trooped off the stage after ‘Sex On Fire’, only to come back with a blistering encore that included a stunning ‘Use somebody’. Audience participation on this song was even more lusty that ‘Sex On Fire’. They closed out with a spectacular fireworks show.
Kings of Leon put on an under-stated, solid rocking show. They have a great bunch of stadium filling songs to choose from. The pace changed variously throughout the show, and it was good to see how well their slower songs carried in the live context.
I can’t wait until they come again!
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