It's a special homecoming christmas show for Kaiser Chiefs. The event sees DJs from Brighton Beach spinning some brilliant indie and rock tunes, old and new, throughout the night, and after the two bands have finished playing. Formerly known as The Beatings, The Beat Up are the first band on tonight. The band put on a bit of an old school rock show playing their hearts out, even though none of the crowd seem to be joining in with the moshtastic and jumpy up and down mentally heavy riffs that they play. But the guitarist who acts and looks a bit like Graham Coxon, and wields his guitar in a similar manner to Graham Coxon, and the bass player spews out some brilliantly distorted and spaced out bass lines, which make you feel like your stomachs going to explode. They play some really good tunes including the boogy woogy of current single Messed Up, Bad Feeling which is not too disimilar to The Datsuns at their prime, another song is played and is an incredibly heavy almost stoner rock song in the vein of Kyuss, all they need though is a stand out track for people to get into. It almost looks like The Beat up might blow Kaiser Chiefs off stage. However when Kaiser Chiefs arrive, they raise the bar on how good a rock show can and should be. Ring leader Ricky Wilson, and Damon Albarn lookalikey, bounds onstage too chants of 'Kaiser, Kaiser' from the devoted crowd. He then has the confidence to ask for a round of applause for his band even before they play a note, he's that certain that his band are that good. They look like a cross between The Beatles and Madness, with their suits and bowler hats. Ricky absolutely owns the stage and the crowd tonight, from standing on the tip of the stage, running about the stage, leaning right into the crowd, and then surfing thorough the crowd, just about making it back on stage. When he jumps into the crowd at the end they won't let him go, they love him that much. He even has a Bono/Enrique Iglesias moment when he pulls a woman, a chiefette, from the crowd and dances with her thoughout the whole song, who is deliriously delighted to be there, taking Franz Ferdinand's desire to getting girls dancing at gigs again a step further. They of course play some killer pop songs tonight most of which haven't been released yet, the crowd know most of the words already, they have a certain Franz Ferdinand poppy dance element to them, mixed with a bit of The Specials ska rock edge too. When they are released next year they're going to set 2005 alight. However when they play I Predict A Riot which is an incitement for the crowd to start a riot on the dancefloor, it feels a bit like being at a Specials gig back in the 1980s. They end with an ace version of next single Oh My God. As someone says at the end of the show they put blood, sweat, tears, and bowler hats in tonights show. A lot of love and attention is put into their music and they're quite rightly earning it back from the crowd. It seems Kaiser Chiefs along with Bloc Party are going to rule 2005. 10/10.
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