Now, I have to admit that I’m not the world’s biggest Kaiser Chiefs fan, but when I found out they were playing a last-minute gig a few miles away I asked the good lady wife if she’d like to go. Of course she would!
The Kaisers are one of her favourite bands, so she jumped at the chance and made sure she was in front of the Seetickets website at the moment of release. As happens a lot with these ‘last minute’ and ‘secret’ gigs, the online ticketing vendors can’t cope with the demand, and their websites go into meltdown – and Seetickets was no exception! Half-way through her purchase, the site ballsed up, so she resubmitted. The end result was that she got billed twice, and received 4 tickets instead of 2.
This wasn’t really a problem, as it meant that Emma’s best mate Catriona could come, and we had no trouble at all hawking the spare ticket on eBay for fun and profit!
Anyhow, we trudged very slowly up the M18 to Donny on a very, very dark and snowy Friday evening. The directions from the Dome website were spot on, and we found ourselves in the hopelessly small car park in no time.
The Doncaster Dome is a multipurpose sports venue, it seems. Having had never been there before, I didn’t really know what to expect, but it turns out that it’s a very drably decorated glorified sports centre, with a weirdly-shaped ice-rink attached to it. The venue really isn’t geared up for several thousand people wanting to watch a music gig though.
The gig was held in a sports hall, which initially rang alarm bells for me – poor acoustics ahoy! But, this proved to be unfounded – the sound was really very good – I guess probably due in part to the presence of the BBC, who were recording the gig both for radio and television broadcast.
Shortly after we made our way into the hall, the support act, The Twang, were introduced by Radio 1′s professional twat – Zane Lowe.
The Twang have been described as being some kind of cross between The Stone Roses and The Streets. Having seen them, I can see that’s what they’d *like* to be known as. But, in actuality, they are very very average and their songs are pretty forgettable. The music itself isn’t bad – the guitarist really does think that he’s John Squire, but the duo of fucked-up-Brummy singer/rappers are *terrible*. The cliched shouts of ‘Fuck the BBC’ and the crappy shout-along choruses got boring quite quickly. Their set was thankfully short, and they left the stage to a lukewarm clap from a bored audience.
A red curtain drew over the stage, with the initials K and C on each side. After a long delay – probably about half an hour – of roadies setting up kit and soundchecking, the lights went down and Twat Lowe was on the stage again. Thankfully someone had the foresight to save up their pint-and-a-half plastic cup (is this a Doncaster speciality? Who’dve thunk of a pint-and-a-half cup?!) of lager and covered the twat with Carling.
The Kaiser Chiefs take the stage and open with the rousing new single, ‘Ruby’. After the recent Chris Moyles ‘Donny’ cover, we’re half-hoping for Ricky to launch into a ‘Donny, Donny, Donny!’ chorus, but we have to settle for the original version instead. Not that this is bad thing – from this first tune on, it’s clear that this is going to be a barnstormer of a gig.
Things hit the high point when they launch into ‘I Predict A Riot’ – predictably, there almost is one as a good 2500 of the 3000 attendees begin pogoing like mad. It’s obviously having a good effect on the band, and Ricky vaults into the crowd two thirds through, a moment I scrambled to capture on my Ixus, but only left me with a few blurred shots of peoples hands.
The band really are on form, and whilst I can’t claim to be familiar with some of their new songs, they do meet with rapturous approval from the crowd – particular stand outs include ‘The Angry Mob’ and ‘Everything is Average Nowadays’. The band finish with another new song, ‘Retirement’, which seems an odd track to leave us with. Unsurprisingly, the encore is called for and the boys come out for a rendition of ‘Na Na Na Na Nah’ and an energetic work out of ‘Oh My God’ before finally calling it a night.
A great gig, made even better when turning to leave, the crowd spot Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles attempting to depart quickly from the balcony. Cue 3000 people screaming ‘You Fat Bastard’ to the bemused ‘tubby-funster’ DJ. The next morning on Moyles’ show, he claimed that the crowd were *cheering* him when he left! Somehow, Mr Moyles, I remember it differently!
But, yes, in short – a great night and 8/10 for the Kaisers.
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3 Comments
So is this going to be a diary of gig’s or are we going to get more of james?
It’s a bit of everything. Just so happens that this is a gig review.
8/10???? Were we at the same gig?? 10/10 and then some!!!! Absolutely fab – new and old stuff the Kaisers are definately doing something right for me!!
When can we go again????