Yours Truly, Not So Angry Mob

Kaiser Chiefs Rock Kool Haus
Toronto: April 18, 2007

"This will be pretty okay" I say to myself as my friend and I head into the Kaiser Chiefs gig at Kool Haus last night. A pompous "A little too light and over hyped for a post punk band" finishes the thought. But my "too cool for you" attitude vanished as soon as the Kaiser Chiefs hit the stage. For the entire set, I bounced up and down, shouting out the lyrics and even sang along to all the "Do do do do do do" stuff. This was perhaps the best live club gig I have seen in the last decade.

The Walkmen opened the show and were ... all right. Good even, I think. My friend liked them and he sometimes knows what he's talking about. I couldn't really hear the singer much and the sound was so washed out it was difficult to tell the difference between songs, unless you already knew them, which I didn't. But that singer is really intense. It has to hurt to scream and howl like that.

When Kaiser Chiefs hit the stage, the Toronto crowd actually got ... well ... genuinely excited (atypical for Toronto crowds). We are usually so laid back and subdued. Ricky Wilson grabbed the mic, hopped up on a monitor and yelled out "Do you wanna sing?" And I guess we really wanted to, because from the first beat of Na Na Na Na Naah through Ruby, Everyday I Love You Less and Less, I Predict a Riot and the rest of the set we never stopped singing.There was a minor pause before the encores but we all got right back into it with We Are The Angry Mob and Oh My God. These two tunes in particular stand out for as the highlights of the show.

What I like most about the show is that live Kaiser Chiefs manage to somehow sound like they do on disc, but with more energy and drive. It was like having a black and white TV all your life and then someone buys you an HDTV!

So there you have it. I had the best time and Ricky still had me singing all the way home. Definitely worth catching Kaiser Chiefs live.

* photos courtesy of ChartAttack.com