THE KOOKS + THE SNUTS – BRIGHTON CENTRE 5.2.22
On a busy Saturday night, The Kooks returned to town to once again perform live at the Brighton Centre. This was at least their third appearance at the biggest venue in town, having previously entertained fans here on 25th November 2017 and 29th November 2008. This time around they were here to celebrate the 15th anniversary of their debut studio album ‘Inside In/Inside Out’, which climbed as high as No.2 in the Official Album Charts in the UK. The quadruple-platinum selling album boasts hits including BRIT Award nominated ‘She Moves In Her Own Way’, ‘You Don’t Love Me’ and the band’s top five single ‘Naive’. These was crafted by Luke Pritchard (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Hugh Harris (lead guitar, backing vocals), Max Rafferty (bass, backing vocals) and Paul Garred (drums).
The Kooks have performed at many venues of differing size in Brighton as they formed here way back in 2004. Three members (Garred, Pritchard and Harris) all met as students at the BRIT School in Croydon. Then all three moved south to join BIMM (British and Irish Modern Music Institute), where they met Brightonian Rafferty in 2002. They appeared in Brighton music venues including The Prince Albert, The Haunt (now CHALK), Concorde 2 and The Dome. Clearly word got out quickly as to how talented they were as they signed to Virgin Records just three months after getting together.
The Kooks have enjoyed an impressive rise to fame since the release of their debut album, ‘Konk’ which reached No.1 in the UK Album Charts. Since then, they’ve gone on to release four further albums with their most recent ‘Let’s Go Sunshine’ achieving top ten status in the UK Album Charts in 2018. Alongside a new breed of fans, the band have gained a total of over 1 billion streams across multiple platforms and embarked on a number of world tours, including a sold-out UK arena tour.
My first memory of the ‘Inside In/Inside Out’ album is covering pretty much all the songs (quite terribly) in a youth club rock band, and yet here we are all a little older and gathered in this packed room in order to share this sense of nostalgic excitement.
We impatiently waited for the first band to take to the stage and at exactly 8pm the lights dimmed, and the excited chatter was replaced with an ambient instrumental track as Scottish indie rock four piece The Snuts walked on stage. Ironically their debut album, titled ‘W.L’, was released last April and on its first week of release hit the No.1 UK Album slot. This was the first debut album by a Scottish band to do so since The View’s ‘Hats Off To The Buskers’ in 2007.
Tonight, The Snuts were to perform eight tracks for us and seven of those can be found on their ‘W.L’ album and the other song is their latest single ‘Burn The Empire’.
They opened with the funk guitar-based track ‘Always’ and frontman Jack Cochrane gave off a vibe of pure cool in his sunglasses and decent vocals. The quartet continued with ‘Juan Belmonte’ and ‘Elephants’. Guitarist Joe McGillveray’s riffs reminded me of old school Arctic Monkeys, but with bassist Callum ’29’ Wilson and drummer Jordan Joko’ Mackay’s own style of upbeat rhythms driving the band. The lads have been together since forming in 2015 and clearly know how to play a decent live set despite very little talking in between songs.
They concluded their 29 minute set with ‘Glasgow’ and all the house lights on with the audience won over and fully warmed up for the main event.
The Snuts are:
Jack Cochrane – vocals, guitar
Joe McGillveray – guitar
Callum ’29’ Wilson – bass
Jordan ‘Joko’ Mackay – drums
The Snuts setlist:
‘Always’
‘Juan Belmonte’
‘Elephants’
‘All Your Friends’
‘Don’t Forget It (Punk)’
‘Somebody Loves You’
‘Burn The Empire’
‘Glasgow’
At 9:01pm it was time for The Kooks to grace the stage. However to begin with it was just frontman Luke Pritchard who performed a solo acoustic version of the ‘Inside In/Inside Out’ album opening track ‘Seaside’.
The lights came up to reveal the full four-piece band on the second song of the set ‘See The World’, which featured vocal harmonies across the whole stage. This well known track brought the whole room to life erupting with sing-alongs and dance moves. By the third song ‘Sofa Song’, Luke had also ditched his guitar to join his fans in the dancing. The first half of the set was packed full of well-known bangers, with the group managing to fit 5 songs into the first 15 minutes alone. They had thus far played the first seven tunes from the album in the correct order, but this was now to change.
After explaining how the band formed in their time at university in Brighton, it was clear how special the night was to all four members, as crowd favourite ‘Ooh La’ was dedicated to those fans who saw them play in pubs and clubs across Brighton 15 years ago.
Tonight’s set contained the more electronic “connections”, however, it was clear that the crowd were much more interested in the traditional material, as the lads returned to iconic tunes such as ‘Jackie Big Tits’ and ‘If Only’. They continued with crowd favourite ‘Do You Wanna’, extending the recorded version into an instrumental jam between guitarist Hugh Harris and the bassist and drummer.
The Kooks ended their main set with ‘Junk Of The Heart (Happy)’, which left the crowd begging for more and they duly obliged and returned for an encore consisting of ‘Matchbox’ and ‘No Pressure’ from their 2018 album ‘Let’s Go Sunshine’
The 21-song set concluded with The Kooks best song ‘Naive’, which had very little need for vocals at all as the crowd sang every word back to the band.
You can catch The Kooks on the remainder of their tour, which is next heading to Glasgow for two nights and then onto Manchester, Cardiff, Leeds, and then for a trio of gigs in the capital. Grab your tickets HERE.
The 22nd July this year will be an exciting date for all fans of The Kooks as they will be releasing the next album, which is titled ‘10 Tracks To Echo In The Dark’ – Pre-order your copy HERE.
The Kooks are:
Luke Pritchard – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, lead guitar (2004–present)
Hugh Harris – lead guitar, backing vocals, piano, keyboards (2004–present), bass (2008–present), rhythm guitar (2004-2008, 2018-present)
Alexis Nunez – drums, percussion (2012–present)
Jonathan Harvey – bass, backing vocals (2021–present)
The Kooks setlist:
‘Seaside’
‘See The World’
‘Sofa Song’
‘Eddie’s Gun’
‘Ooh La’
‘You Don’t Love Me’
‘She Moves In Her Own Way’
‘Bad Habit’
‘Connection’
‘Shine On’
‘I Want You’
‘Jackie Big Tits’
‘If Only’
‘Always Where I Need To Be’
‘Do You Wanna’
‘Got No Love’
‘Time Awaits’
‘Junk Of The Heart (Happy)’
(encore)
‘Matchbox’
‘No Pressure’
‘Naïve’
