Pugilists and puny-legged peddlers of popular music

The Kooks at the Astoria, 19th May 2006

I still can’t make up my mind about the Kooks. What are they? An indie version of a manufactured boy band (Backstreet Beatniks?); a Razorlight tribute band (already?); a smart and sassy band of puny-legged protégés, with a shot at the big-time crossover market? One thing is sure though, and that is that front man Luke Pritchard is the spitting image of Johnny Borrell when he first appeared on the scene- all curly-haired boisterousness and vigorous self-aggrandizing rhetoric. Some commentators have imbued him with Dylanesque resonance but to me he's definately more Borrell than Bob. So are the Kooks the genuine article? Personally I’m a bit peeved by the presumptiveness of the name. They don’t seem that kooky to me...the Mystery Jets, Larriken Love, The Holloways, now they're real eccentrics. Plus the alliterative similarity with the Kinks is a bit of a lazy marketing gimmick- at least the Arctic Monkeys, another indie teen sensation, managed to come up with a totally original name that helped mark them out as something a bit different, something to be remembered and watched out for.

Despite my reservations, I do actually enjoy myself at the Astoria this evening. Myself and redwineaddict install ourselves on the balcony, spying like the voyeurs we are, on the crowd of pasty-faced detention-dodgers and fledgling fashionistas below. The support act, Dan Sartain, entertains greatly in a rough-hewn, hillbilly, spit and sawdust kinda of way (the words Buddy Holly tribute band will absolutely NOT pass my lips, oh no). The crowd at this point seem quite pleasant and lacking in any pugilistic intent, although retrospectively I think perhaps it was laced with an element of danger. The young crowd of girly polka-doted fans are complimented by a similar number of slightly older lager-drinking student types and the whole of the area beneath us is swaying to and fro in the manner of a rotten, leaking boat. Entertaining as this is, the end result is bound to be ungentlemanly, and sure thing, as the Kooks come out to rapturous applause, a fight breaks out, proper fisticuffs, and Luke himself makes a plangent plea to the crowd (heartfelt and oh so articulate): “ Could you fu**ers please stop fighting now?”.

Once the fracas has blown over, everything settles down, and the skinny-legged one is actually more likable than his nasal songsmithery and reputation as a silver spoon in the mouth, stage school engineered charlatan, has lead me to suspect. He's friendly and chatty in a minimalistic way eg "This song is called Seaside and was inspired by a trip to the seaside". Plus they have got good tunes. You Don’t Love Me, Sofa Song, and Naive are great singalong songs to be sure (although the over the top nasal quality of Naive repels me slightly). So I don't know what it is that continues to annoy me about the Kooks; they have promise but it feels as if they haven't quite got it together yet and have had way too much exposure, way too soon. They need to work on their persona and their musical sense of direction a lot more that's for certain. I don't want to knock them too much, honest I don't, just as I wouldn't kick a sick puppy who I accidentally stumbled over in the street. They're way too cute for that.

Poor Kooks, I really am going to have to shut up now. GSG.