Live Review: Kings of Leon

Gregor Thomson
Mar 20, 2017
2 min read

Despite the many flaws of their latest album, I still paid money to go see Kings of Leon. They’re still my favorite band and I still enjoyed the album. As the red lights lit up the Hydro, the family band stepped onto the stage and launched, ironically, into The End, when I say launched, I mean quietly began. There was no oomph. The sound didn’t hit you like a train. The bass was too quiet. It stayed this way until their fourth song, Four Kicks, when the bass kicked in. Then they slowed it down with Muchacho. They sounded brilliant, Caleb’s vocals were perfect and the guitar solo was just such a pleasant thing to hear. Then the usual suspects like The Bucket and Molly Chambers sped the gig up again, with their usual professional sound. They then slowed it down again with Over, played and sang well until the break. It just sounded like a bunch of melodies playing over each other in a mush of sound. Another notable song was Comeback Story, one I haven’t heard them play live before. They all came forward and huddled in a group and played an almost unplugged version with only one drum. This was effective and brought them back to their usual live standards. They kept the tempo slow when, Caleb was left alone on the stage to play Walls. I can’t fault his vocals on this but I don’t think the drums were played live behind the curtain which was a tad annoying but after the curtain was lifted and the band joined Caleb, they shot into a heavier version of the song which was amazing and overwhelmingly good. One other notable song they played was Pyro, which they played perfectly. They finished on a high with Waste a Moment, a good end to a pretty good performance. The set list was varied and unique, the vocals were as always, perfect but overall I was disappointed for the first time after seeing my favorite band play. It may be because the sound was inconsistent, it could be due to my feelings of nostalgia hoping for them to play like they did the first time I saw them seven years ago or it may be the fact that they’ve played perfectly the two following gigs I went to, which may have put my expectations to an unachievable height. However, I’ll still see them next time they venture over the pond, and I’d recommend you do the same.