The Kooks + Dash and Will – Metro Theatre (27.08.08)


It’s taken a bloody long time for The Kooks to finally make it to our shores – and this, their first of 3 Sydney shows (if the MySpace one counts), finally gave audiences what they’d been waiting so long for. And didn’t disappoint!

It’s taken a bloody long time for The Kooks to finally make it to our shores – and this, their first of 3 Sydney shows (if the MySpace one counts), finally gave audiences what they’d been waiting so long for.

With a minimal (yet impressive for the Metro, to be completely honest) backdrop of 4 strip lights, the lads from Brighton wasted no time in getting to all their hits – playing songs like “Eddie’s Gun”, “Ooh La” and “Naive” surprising early in the set. But that certainly didn’t slow them down, as they went on to play (to the audience’s delight) virtually every song off their debut LP Inside In Inside Out. In fact, leaving the gig, the word on everyone’s lips was “They played every song I wanted to hear!” And if you ever go to gigs you’ll know such a sentiment is rarely shared.

Surprising to many people, perhaps even the band itself, was that many of those must-hear songs actually came off their latest album, Konk, with “Sway,” among others, gaining huge sing-alongs. And for myself, these brought some of the highlights of the evening.

But it wasn’t just that “Sway” that got the sing-alongs… or even the rest of their singles. With a set comprising almost every song off the first album, and the more regarded songs off the new one, it’s no surprise that the crowd was singing along to every single word, every song – myself included (probably embarrassingly so).

This is a band that has, as the press release itself put it, a legion of fans in Australia, and they certainly showed their respect to such a fact with this show and the aforementioned setlist. And good on the Metro for keeping the volume high enough to drown out the All Age guests who do like to talk through the show (whom I ranted about in last week’s round-up of Death Cab).

Pity we couldn’t really understand anything they were saying though. I’ll blame that one on the accents though? Either that or I was just too drunk. But like many of these sort of bands, they did keep banter to a minimal level. Such would provide much of the reason they were able to get through so much material in just about an hour and 20 minutes!

Surprisingly, the boys will be gracing our shores again in just a few months, showing themselves off as one of the main acts at this year’s Falls Festival. So if you missed them this time, you might have missed one of the most entertaining shows of the year… but thankfully they’ll be back before you know it. And you can bet I’ll be there with bells on… along with my slightly tone deaf (albiet drunken) singing.

Larry Heath

Founding Editor and Publisher of the AU review. Currently based in Toronto, Canada. You can follow him on Twitter @larry_heath or on Instagram @larryheath.