The Kooks, Illinois live!

The Kooks, Illinois
Metro, Chicago
Saturday, May 5, 2007

Watching The Kooks gratify a sold-out Metro on Saturday must have been what it was like to guard the French side of the Maginot Line in the early 1930s. Critics are lined up to shoot them down, but it probably won’t be enough to stem the foreign-born blitz.

Of course, these peach-fuzzed Brits are hardly as fearsome or ominous as the wehrmacht. The Brighton band aren’t even remotely as menacing as the Arctic Monkeys, who themselves only instill as much fear-of-God as a toddler in a Little Tikes’ Go-And-Grow rider. In fact, The Kooks are the anti-Arctic Monkeys. The Monkeys avoid hooks, The Kooks embrace them (almost too willingly). Alex Turner seems prepared to undermine his band’s success at every turn while Luke Pritchard almost dizzied himself at the Metro while trying to find an appropriate way to show enthusiasm. The only conventional edge Turner has on Pritchard is diction — The Kooks’ man rivals only the mighty Ozzy when it comes to slurring ‘tween-song banter.

The only vexing thing about Saturday’s headliners is figuring out what it is they do so well to merit all the attention. When they bring it (“Seaside,” “Naive,” “She Moves In Her Own Way”) their guitar pop can prove irresistible, crunching more lip-smacking goodness than most power pop bands manage in entire careers. But too often songs off Inside In/Inside Out (Astralwerks) merely frittered time away seeking angles (a light reggae hop was a favorite), barely measuring up to the ankles of Maroon 5. Guitarist Hugh Harris’ use of feedback was laughable, barely outshining drummer Paul Garred’s sleeveless CBGB T-shirt, which recalled Jennifer Aniston donning MC5 gear on “Friends.”

Undeniable, however, is their drive. While handfuls of songs were uninteresting and held lyrical Saltines like “Still I need your sun,” “When I’m with you I feel fine,” and “If you love something let it go,” The Kooks’ conviction to give a great show never wavered — and somehow escaped self-seriousness. Echoes of “Afternoon Delight” surfaced in the outro harmonies of “Matchbox” with giddy, ’70s radio glee, just as the bite of “You Don’t Love Me” was a welcome if short-lived thrust into overdrive.

It was enough to send the Metro home in a tizzy, and even those of us cynics were hardpressed to find reasons why they won’t become a juggernaut. There’s an inevitability about The Kooks — a helpless feeling from this vantage.

Pennsylvania-bred opener Illinois seemed primed to make a great impact, but were curiously distracted throughout their 45-minute set. Frontman Chris Archibald made it his duty to give constant updates on when The Kooks would arrive onstage, and his antics of moving between keys, banjo, and hypeman bordered on obnoxious. The quartet’s (a five-piece live) debut EP, What The Hell Do I Know? (Ace Fu) set a precedent for this, jumping from style to style on “Nosebleed” and “Headphones” and sounding like a mid-’90s meeting of the minds between Mark Linkous, Beck, and Wayne Coyne without ever coming out of the basement. Nevertheless, Illinois frequently caught fire whenever the music got moving enough to clog the stage. The quintet continually threatened to destroy each other with violent bursts of energy, but somehow channeled it into the set. If only that mojo and focus could be worked into the songs.

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly