Those who showed up at the 9:30 Club on Saturday night with any doubts about The Kooks’ talent were certainly persuaded, and maybe even wooed into super-fan territory. The four lads from Brighton played a pitch-perfect set that had all the classic elements of an epic rock show, including crowdsurfing and a young woman who threw her underwear up on stage. The Kooks have been on the fast track to superstardom since forming in 2004, with several hit singles and a debut album that went quadruple platinum in the U.K. Judging from Saturday’s sold-out show, it won’t be long before the band is a household name on this side of the pond too.
The show started off with a solid performance from Pennsylvania indie-rockers Illinois, who are wrapping up their gig opening for The Kooks this week and then embarking on a tour with The Hold Steady. After performing their radio-friendly ballad, “Alone Again,” Illinois were apologetic for “all that girly stuff.” Once the girly stuff had been dealt with, the scruffy foursome toyed with a variety of styles, from metal to jam-band, to a number that wasn’t so much a “song” as a spoken-wordy riff along the lines of Nada Surf’s “Popular.” Frontman Chris Archibald used a telephone receiver with the cord wrapped around his neck as a mic on a few songs, giving his voice a nasally, phone-operator quality or a Ben Gibbard-esque remoteness. The standout songs were “Headphones” which could be a hi-fi counterpart to Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son” and the honky-tonk “Nosebleed,” which Archibald noted is “Luke’s favorite.” The Kooks’ frontman Luke Pritchard, that is.
By the time The Kooks took the stage around 9:15, the club was packed. Both The Kooks and their crowd were like a Disney channel movie about rebellious teenagers: an easy-to-swallow balance of edgy and polished. The band’s sound is best described as Britpop with reggae and dub influences, which, as some audience members noted, recall early Police albums. Their lyrics are simple (think lots of “Sha la la”s and “Ooh la”s), but Luke Pritchard’s distinctive, heavily accented vocals make up for it. The guys have a confident, energetic stage presence that makes them seem like seasoned performers. Particularly impressive given that they’re all in their late teens or early 20s, and look even younger. Pritchard could pass for a recent Bar Mitzvah, and guitarist Hugh Harris looks like Harry Potter’s friend Ron. The band opened with a slower song, “Seaside,” then quickly jumped into their punchier stuff, including their first single, “Eddie’s Gun,” and the ska-tinged “Matchbox.” Pritchard switched to an acoustic guitar for “Ooh La,” and picked it up again for another hit song, “She Moves in Her Own Way.” If you haven’t yet been exposed to the infection that is “She Moves in Her Own Way,” download it immediately. The band also played “Naive,” “You Don’t Love Me,” and the requisite encore, which included “Jackie Big Tits.”
Photo from The Kooks’ MySpace page.
