Kasabian, The Enemy - Hammersmith Palais, London - Tuesday 13th February 2007

NME Awards shows seem to get better and better as the years go on. Forget the tour, although that is a decent show, featuring The View this year. The real action happens with the London series of gigs in February. Often exclusive sets with no national tour attached, this time featuring Kings Of Leon, We Are Scientists, Maximo Park, Kaiser Chiefs and Kasabian - as well as a stackload of the most exciting bands in the country.

This show is apparently to be one of the last at Hammersmith Palais, before the place gets knocked down later this year. Although it is a historic place, I actually don't think that much of it as a venue - your view isn't great and it is hard to move around the place. Nevertheless, there seem to be too many venues under threat at the moment - it is more profitable to turn them into flats or shops, but that shouldn't be allowed!

I arrived just at the end of the opening set, from The Hours. The song or two that I heard sounded OK, although I really didn't see enough to make much of a judgement. The main support band were The Enemy. With a single called Its Not OK (To Be A Slave) which has been on heavy play on MTV2 for the last month or so, I was eager to hear what they were like. The single was an undoubted highlight of their set, but overall I thought they sounded like a decent band - a good sound, several good songs apart from the single, and an interesting set overall.

Kasabian came on stage to an absolutely riotous reception, and ploughed straight into Shoot The Runner. Unfortunately, the sound died about a minute into the song. Kasabian's monitor speakers still worked, but that was all that was working. The band played on regardless, and the crowd joined in with the words as best they could. Just as people were starting to boo at the lack of sound, it came back as suddenly as it had failed. Given the soundchecks and preparations for these events, which go on all afternoon, it is amazing (and annoying) just how often there are sound problems at gigs. Hmmm.

The rest of the set was excellent, although I did think that the sound was not at all loud enough - more volume throughout the venue would have been better. The band seemed to be on fire, and really enjoying themselves - there were several shouts from the band about how good the crowd were, and a good time was had by all. Obviously, highlights included LSF as the set closer in the encore, and as ever, the chorus was being sung all the way back to the Tube station. Great live band, great gig - but then we knew that anyway. This is what the NME thought of the gig.