Concert Review: The Kills (Paradiso 25 November 2011)

Yup it’s that time again. I went to see another concert, this time by The Kills. This British/ American rock duo have been described as the non-commercial version of The White Stripes, but I think that is cutting their music a bit short. Sure, the band consists of a guy and a girl and they make rock songs that get stuck in your head, but that’s where the comparison ends. The Kills are raw, grunge and unpredictable and I love it.

Excuse the not so good picture, but this is the only picture that came out looking half decent.

First of all, they played a pretty good setlist. I did find that the first half of the concert was a bit drab. The audience certainly had to get into it as well as the band. The songs they played didn’t help. This also has to do with the overall sound of the band: many songs sound very similar and there’s only a few that really stand out, so that made for a not so varied setlist for the first half of the concert. On top of that, the vocals were drowned out by the drums in many of the songs too, which didn’t help.

However, once it got going, it got going and the concert eventually turned into a full blown rock concert including a pit with people bouncing around and going crazy. They played a good variety of songs which were taken from all 4 albums The Kills have made. The majority of the show consisted of songs which are on their last album: Blood Pressures such as DNA, Satellite, Pots and Pans and Heart is Beating Drum. They also played a good deal of songs of their previous album Midnight Boom with Black Balloon, Cheap and Cheerful and Tape Song being crowd favorites.

My favorites of the night were No Wow, Kissy Kissy, URA Fever, Pots and Pans, Cheap and Cheerful, Fried and Fuck the People. These songs all had amazing crowd participation or stood out because they were so catchy and just worked. One thing I know for sure is that the slow start of the show cannot be played on the performers. The female half of the group (Alison Mosshart) owns the stage and has all the antics of a real rock star without overdoing it. He, Jamie Hince, is more cool and collected and I’m still thinking he wore special shoes so he could shimmy around the stage like he did.

All in all, this concert rocked and was very entertaining. It didn’t blow me off my socks, but it definitely is a concert that I will remember.

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