Photo: James Arnold
The Barras reputation carries around the world a special venue. Tonight sees those Kaiser Chiefs play their only Scottish date during the pre ‘Off With Their Heads’ album release tour.
As they grace the stage after a build up of The Who, fervent fans scream manically at their heroes, leaving me wondering whether I've maybe have stumbled into a Take That or Boyzone gig by mistake. But nope, not the case as Ricky Wilson ambles on stage he takes his usual egotistical stance on top of the monitors as they trawl through a mix of old and new tracks. Opening with ‘Spanish Metal' and moving into ‘Never Miss A Beat’, the crowd test their vocal skills for the first time of the night with typical aplomb. This continues as the Kaisers fleet through tracks such as ‘Every Day I love You Less and Less’, ‘Heat Dies Down’ and fairly decent new effort ‘You Want History’. With attempt to add some texture to their performance the use of cow bells and tambourine genuinely lifts the pop tunes. ‘Ruby’ sees a frenzy of scissor kicks and jumps from Wilson as the audience sing that love it or hate it chorus “Ruby, Ruby, Ruby. Rubbbyyyy”. It sticks in your head, gnaws at you and it gradually drives you mad, predictably however the adoring fans love every second.
The band flow thought the rest of the set in the shape of ‘ Good Days, Bad Days’, and the ‘The Angry Mob’. As almost predicted half way through the gig, Ricky decides he wants to run through the audience, however when a drunken Glaswegian doesn’t move at the snap of Ricky’s fingers he gets aggressive and screams abuse at her down his microphone. Eventually he makes his way to the back of the Barras and scrambles across the heads of the audience as he crowd surfed his way back to the stage in time to burst into closing track ‘Oh My God’, which is met with shouting, more screaming and full vocal participation from the crowd.
As the Kaisers stumble back onto the stage for their predominately dull encore, the gig is finished unsurprisingly by ‘I Predict a Riot’.There's no denying that Ricky has tremendous stamina and range as he entertains his audience, however so does Robbie Williams and the comparisons tonight were uncanny - a pop star who has got to big for his boots due to a flurry of adoring fans.
