Kaiser Chiefs, Maximo Park, Futureheads, Hard-Fi - L'Aeronef, Lille - Saturday 5th November 2005

Last night's Arctic Monkeys gig was a mere warmup for the main event tonight, getting the chance to see 4 of the UK's hottest bands in a small (approx 1000 capacity) venue. The Kaiser Chiefs sold out 13,000 tickets for 3 gigs in London inside 20 minutes last month, yet under 2 hours away on the Eurostar, tickets are available on the day for 19 Euro. Having Maximo Park, Futureheads and Hard Fi on the bill as well was a lovely bonus.

There were significantly more English people at the gig than the previous night, and the venue was much less full - the French are bigger fans of Devendra Banhart and Antony than I thought! In fact, the crowd was probably close to 40% English.

So, Hard Fi came on stage at 8:30, and ran through a quick half hour of highlights from their album. Despite the venue being half empty, security seemed to be much more agitated than the previous night, at one point a security guard dived into the crowd to steal the camera of somebody he spotted taking a photo - very over-the-top. Hard Fi sounded good, but it is a bit annoying of them to use a backing track when they play live.

The Futureheads ran through a very upbeat and energetic set, probably the band I was looking forward to least of the evening, but they were very solidly entertaining!

Maximo Park on the other hand were much better than that, they were absolutely incredible! They arrived to the most riotous reception that any band on either night had been given, and fully justified it. They tore through most of their album, and the crowd ensured that there was plenty of noise between the songs as well. Very strange to see a band that aren't that big in the UK being received like heroes in France.

Kaiser Chiefs were predictably fantastic, their set was like a complete riot, and seemed to pass by in about 10 minutes, I was enjoying it so much. A French guy I spoke to said that he'd never seen the venue go so mad for any band - but if there's any band to make that happen right now, then surely the Kaiser Chiefs are the best around. Ricky did nothing to calm security down, they desperately tried to stop him diving off stage into the crowd - one running dive later, and they'd pretty much given up hope. I managed to evade security for long enough to take this photo.

After the band finished, we went to the bar, and had a beer and a chat with Richard from Hard Fi, a thoroughly nice guy who seemed genuinely surprised at how big his band are getting. Still, his new fame didn't stop the security guards trying to throw him out of the venue at his own gig!

A cracking evening, and a fantastic weekend all round - this festival featured Kings of Leon and Bloc Party last year - I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for next year's line up.