The Kooks, The Automatic - Forum, Tunbridge Wells - Saturday 28th January 2006

In the week of the Monkey, Brighton band The Kooks also released their long awaited and much acclaimed debut album. In fact, on my weekly trip to HMV this week, they appeared to have completely sold out of copies. I guess this was because lots of Arctic Monkey album buyers also picked up a copy of The Kooks, which was doubtless a lot more demand than the shops expected.

The Kooks are midway through a sold-out breakthrough UK tour to support their single and album, which stopped in at Tunbridge Wells Forum. Albeit, this is one of the smallest venues on their tour, and The Kooks are one of the better-known bands to play here - but even more of a treat for those reasons. A bargain at £6 to get in, and with bonus support from The Automatic, a band that have also been tipped for good things in 2006.

Arriving when the doors opened, it took around an hour to get inside, and people were still coming in when the Kooks got on stage - this in a venue that only holds 200 people!!   Anyway, when we did finally manage to get inside, it was just in time to see The Automatic. They sounded good, not great, but good. Their single, Recover was an obvious highlight, but they had little else that touched the same heights. A couple of catchy songs towards the end, it was a set that disappointed a little, especially given the good things that had been written about them.

I was really impressed by The Kooks. I had seen them very briefly about 6 months ago, in a tent at the V Festival. They sounded OK then, but I didn't really see enough to judge. Since then, I have got really hooked on some of their songs, in particular Eddie's Gun, but also a couple of other tracks from the album. The atmosphere inside the venue was electric, and the crowd seemed to have ensured a resounding victory before the band had even done anything.

Luckily, the band matched upto the anticipation, and spent 50 minutes ripping through the vast majority of their available material. After almost every song, they stopped to pay tribute to the crowd, who were enthusiastically stagediving and crowd surfing - classic TW Forum behaviour. They won't play somewhere this small again, and the crowd were determined to make the most of the intimacy whilst they could.

A true graduation gig, as this band rightly move up from the pub and club circuit. Their music suggests they could move up further still. This time last year, I saw Kaiser Chiefs open up a bill at Brixton. The Kooks were comparable, if maybe lacking a killer attraction like I Predict A Riot. They would do well to go as far as Kaiser Chiefs, but 2006 should be a good year for The Kooks.