Ah-ahh-ahh-ahhh-ah-ah-a-ah-ahh
Kasabian at Brixton Academy. First time we've seen them live. A cosmic experience, hampered only by being in the circle - first time I've been up there, and although you get a good view of the stage, and the sound is unimpaired, there's an occasional steward telling you not to dance in the aisles, which is irritating, and you feel just that little bit detached from the communal experience. None of this could take away from a terrific performance. They played eight songs from Empire, which, considering many of them were new to the partisan crowd, went down incredibly well. They even risked playing three in a row (Me Plus One, By My Side, The Last Trip). Lighting was simple but effective, with blocks of red, projected spider-web shapes and additional pulsing green lights, but nothing too distracting and you could see the faces of the audience for a lot of it, which adds to the communality.

Tom Meigham (pictured) is a formidable frontman, albeit not one with much to say between songs ("Cheers, Brixton! Thanks a lot, London!") - he's more like a conductor, in fact, cheerleading the audience, leading them in song. A rangy, almost comical fellow in a red top, he was counterpointed marvellously by the much more sultry Sergo Pizzorno in his cowboy hat, and his stern instruction, "I wanna see every single fucking one of you moving." They make a great team. This is a band who've been touring non-stop since 2004 (I think they did three tours in one year), and for a band who go off at impressionistic tangents, they're tight. I was chuffed to hear my favourite song from the album, The Stuntman, but inevitably, the old ones drew the most fevered response: Club Foot, Cutt Off, Processed Beats, arms in the air, overhead clapping, nothing like as much beer thrown as you get at Arctic Monkeys gigs, but then again, this seemed anecdotally to be a moderately older crowd. There were certainly more females in the audience than you might expect for a laddish lot like Kasabian, but maybe that's down to the handsome Serge.

Highlight was, handily enough, the last song of a 15-minute encore: L.S.F (Lost Souls Forever). Such drama in those instrumental bridges between verse and chorus, giving Tom an excuse to further whip up the crowd! And though the obtuse lyrics are hard to sing along to ("The troops are on fire! ... I'm trading just a little more ... step on it, electronic ... I'm carving through a letterbomb etc."), you can't go wrong with the chorus:

"Ahhh, oh come on!
We got our backs to the wall!
Ah!
Get on!
And watch out!
Sayin', You're gonna kill us all!"

The climax was an audience singalong, at which the band reduced the song to near-silence, with just a bass drum going, and the "ah-ah-ahh-ahh"s resounding around Brixton's caverous hall. When the house lights went up, the crowd carried on chanting, and I mean out of the auditorium, down the stairs, out into the foyer of the Academy and onto the Stockwell Road. According to the Kasabian forum, this continued in the pubs. What a fantastic night. Glad I saw Kasabian here, in a relatively small venue, so that I don't feel the need to see them at Earls Court on their December arena tour. I wish them well though, and since they're already such a festival hit, I'm sure it'll work. (They're coming in to play the 6 Music Hub next Wednesday, while I'm sitting in for Gideon. Life is sweet.)

This excellent photo was taken by Bubbs, and the full set can be found at the forum, under the "Live" thread.