The Kooks - Buffalo Bar, London - Wednesday 5th September 2007

Back to the Buffalo Bar for another of the excellent Rockfeedback nights - this time tied in with (and arguably somewhat taken over by) XFM's 10th birthday. The Kooks had played at a previous club night here, way back in May 2005, before anybody had heard of them - but they have obviously got significantly bigger since! This show was open to competition winners only, with various different competitions run by The Kooks, Rockfeedback and XFM. This meant a slightly strange and mixed audience, made up of hardcore Kooks fans (more on them later), XFM listeners, and relative Buffalo Bar (and Rockfeedback) regulars.

On entering the venue, lots of things made it clear that this was not a normal night. Firstly, there were lots of people milling around with "Access All Areas" passes - not that there are really many areas available to access in the Buffalo Bar. Secondly, because everybody on the magic list had guaranteed entry (and didn't have to pay), there was no huge stampede to get into the venue at 8pm - so when I got in at half eight, it was quite empty. And, there were loads of people working there for XFM, filming, photographing, and otherwise capturing the gig. Generally, there were loads of people "working", which made being one of the "punters" even more unusual and special - and because there was so much filming and photography going on, the capacity seemed to be even lower than normal.

We had been promised The Rivers as a support band - who didn't materialise in the end - a shame, because the songs on their MySpace site sounded Ok. Still, at a gig which nobody paid to get into, you can't really complain! So, time passed and passed, then just before 10pm, I was standing at the bar, when Luke Pritchard and the rest of the band walked down the stairs into the venue, flanked by a couple of security guards, and proceeded to pick their way through the audience to the small "backstage" area.

At this point, many of the "hardcore Kooks fans" referred to above, started screaming. In fact, for the 5 or 10 minutes before they started playing, there were liberal doses of screaming girls. Most unwelcome. I know that, being at a Kooks gig, you are unlikely to see people shooting up in the audience, and it is likely to be rather on the tame side. But screaming girls is a little bit extreme - and when a few of them started fainting during the set, it was quite embarrassing.

The band came on, and ploughed straight into a quickfire run through of the highlights of their debut album - getting See The World, Eddie's Gun and Matchbox (as you can see from the graffiti-ridden setlist I picked up) out of the way very early on. Last time I saw The Kooks properly, was in Tunbridge Wells, the week their album came out, and it was amazing to see how much more assured and more slick they are at playing live now. They have some great pop songs (even though they have been so ubiquitous as to have become annoying over the last 18 months), and the urgency of the guitars gives them a really exciting edge when they play them live. Luke Pritchard stopped occasionally to talk to the crowd, but sounded drunk as usual, initially really slurring his words, but then sounding more coherent towards the end of the set. Despite the small venue, it was really pretty difficult to see from the back of the room, so it was nice of Luke to continually climb up onto the stage monitors, to give those of us at the back a look at him. The venue was full of people taking photos on their phones, or on digital cameras - in fact, during Naive, all you could see from the back was a sea of mobile phones. The cigarette lighter equivalent for a 21st century gig, you know.

As the set progressed, the band seemed to be enjoying it more and more, and the NME reviewer seemed to like the gig too. They started to deviate from their planned setlist, playing a song that they hadn't intended, and leaving off You Don't Love Me and Jackie Big Tits - which I was really upset about, as the latter is one of my favourite songs. Given the difficulty of getting on and off stage, and the cramped nature of the venue, the band didn't bother going off stage before the encore, they just played right on through. All in all, a fantastic gig to have had the pleasure of watching - a band with some excellent songs, that play a great live show. Not exactly an example of rock and roll excess, but a brilliant gig all the same.