‘We are the Kaiser Chiefs and we’re from Leeds… And Cornwall…’
That’s a pretty weird way for a band as fundamentally Northern as the Kaiser Chiefs to greet a crowd, right? It does make sense – frontman Ricky Wilson and keyboardist Nick ‘Peanut’ Baines have recently relocated to everyone’s favourite holiday destination. The family-friendly show (any potential for rock and roll antics was killed as soon as the band realised that Baines’ mother was in attendance) highlighted the fact that the Kaiser Chiefs are one of the best live bands in the country right now. The Leeds lads have been putting out consistently great indie anthems for the best part of a decade now, yet their live shows still remain as fresh and exciting as they were back in 2005.
Kicking off with energetic live favourite Thank You Very Much, the band quickly race through a setlist spanning the entirety of their career. It was a set of two halves – the first section of the set consisted mainly of album tracks and fan favourites (such as the always-awesome Like It Too Much and Kinda Girl You Are), while the second half was an all-out audio assault of indie anthems and chart hits. Classics such as The Modern Way, Every Day I Love You Less and Less and Little Shocks were the perfect soundtrack to a warm evening spent nestled amongst Eden’s stunning biomes – the fact that such an intimate venue manages to repeatedly pull in world-class live acts is nothing short of miraculous, and the rolling Cornish scenery is absolutely breathtaking. It’s one of our favourite venues.
New track Misery Company is a guitar-led belter that marks a departure from the keyboard and synth sounds of their last LP. It’s definitely got an air of the Employment era about it and it bodes well for the next album – the departure of drummer and principal songwriter Nick Hodgson led many to question the band’s future, but we’re sure that they’ll survive.
Vocalist Ricky Wilson is a little bit mental. When he wasn’t legging it through the crowd to the disabled viewing platform at the back of the Eden arena he was jumping around like a madman (and hitting his head on the side of a monitor after a nasty-looking fall). We’ll admit that we *might* have been a little bit scared when Ricky scaled the huge metal pillars that surround the Eden stage – we genuinely wouldn’t put it past him to jump into the arms of the adoring crowd thirty feet below him.
The gig crashed to a close with the triple-threat bonanza of I Predict a Riot, Ruby and The Angry Mob, before the band returned to end the night with the atmospheric Love’s Not a Competition (But I’m Winning) and a rousing rendition of signature tune Oh My God. They’re still fresh, they’re still original and they’re still one of our favourite live bands – we love the Kaiser Chiefs.
