Weekly > Reviews
The Kills - The Cockpit, Leeds
Due to not knowing when I was setting off to London for the football this weekend I’d left it too late to get a ticket for this sold out show at The Cockpit. Which was disappointing as i’ve been desperate to see These New Puritans since hearing Elvis at the turn of the year and of course The Kills was the icing on the cake.
Luckily one of my PR contacts came through with a couple of guest list places for me and it was off to the gig we go, hi ho hi ho…or something.
For once we were there in plenty of time, so we’d got a really good spot for These New Puritans when they emerged onto the stage. The first thing to grab me was how much of a debt they owed to The Klaxons dress wise, lead singer J.B. sports some strange futuristic chainmail attire that gives the impression that he’s trying out for the band he’d really like to be in!
Performance wise i’m left pretty damn gutted by this Southend outfit. They have none of the subtle brilliance that came across on debut album Beat Pyramid, instead they build their entire set around the drummer, who while very good, still dominates the overall sound for me. J.B. suffers from his vocals being too quiet, so even a track like Elvis (which gets the best reaction) loses some of it’s edge and cool.
They play a pretty short set and it pains me to say it but i’m glad, they just don’t convert the tracks that made me love them in the live arena and I certainly wouldn’t be bothered for seeing them again live. I know everyone can have a bad day, but this was just tedious and out of tune, not two great qualities to have really are they!
The Kills unfortunately don’t fare much better for me. We have a really long wait in between the two bands which I can’t understand as it’s not like they have hundreds of members or instruments to sort out. The crowd are a bit restless, but the duo do emerge eventually. Alison looks as cool as ever and Jamie Hince looks like the consumate rock star that he eventually turned into.
- The Kills
- The Cockpit, Leeds (2008)
- Category: Live
- Label: Domino Records
- Support: These New Puritans
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 21 Apr 2008
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
Weblinks
Add to favouritesPlaying wise they are ok, they deliver their blues-garage-rock with conviction, the vocals are again a little bit too low down in the mix of things for me and this doesn’t really get rectified throughout the set. The highlihts are definitely Fried My Little Brains and Cheap And Cheerful, both of which still don’t sound anywhere near as good as they do on record and come a bit late in the day to salvage things for me.
The main problem with them for me is their utter aloofness and disdain for the crowd. While you don’t expect them to be chatting in between every song, it would be nice if they could have managed more than the two or three ‘thank you’s’ that we got after a couple of the songs. Part of the whole experience of seeing a band live is the interaction between band and audience, unfortunately tonight that was nil.
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