Kings Of Leon at the Forum: Inglewood CA, 8/22/2009

It's difficult to know where to start with this one, so I'm going to start at the beginning.

I took my sister to this show. We bought the expensive beers. We ate our respective salty carbs. We ended up sitting in a place very similar to where Mom and I saw Bruce Springsteen, so we were close, but would be looking at lots of shoulders, as opposed to faces, which gives the show a different feel but (as my sister pointed out) provides a perfect, rare chance to watch the drummer. Try patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time if you want a glimpse of how hard drumming really is. It's amazing to watch.

The opening act, the Whigs, were an impressive power-trio hailing from Athens, Georgia and boasting of some serious athletics. These guys are powerful musicians, in every sense of the word. They are amp-hoping, two-stepping southern rockers who make a much louder noise then you'd think three people could, more like the noise of Lynyrd Skynyrd then the alt-rock, grunge retro headliners. Later on in the show, Caleb Followill would call these three his friends and declare "Someday they'll be headlining here!" and I would hope he's right: it won't be for lack of talent if these guys don't make it.

Kings of Leon have clearly made it. Their fascinating amalgamated brand of rock comes on like a hurricane and never lets up, and I swear, spirits were running so high that in comparison, they might as well have been asleep the last time I saw them.

Iggy Pop once said of the Stooges sibling rhythm section "You can't get a bond like that without blood." And although a lot of fantastic bands haven't needed blood, the Followill brothers + cousin have been playing together since they were children and it shows. I got the feeling an earthquake couldn't derail this crew.

And Caleb Followill, who had barely a sentence to spare for the audience last time I saw them, was positively glowing. "I was so nervous I was throwing up all day, but now that I'm here, and you're a great crowd, I'm having a great time!" Then he downed his red plastic cup and yelled "I'm getting drunk!" Everyone cheered. The reason for the nerves was made apparent when he said that he had lots of family and friends in the crowd, here to see them to finally play the big venues "we get to play everywhere else" and how "rarely enough these days" every last person in the band was having a blast.

They seemed to be. Guitar picks were flicked. Nathan's drumsticks went flying across the stage more then once. No one but Caleb said anything, but the band's high-spirits were evident in that sort of intangible quality the best live music has, the kind that just sets the place on fire. There was just pure exhilaration in the air.

"You guys, you guys are great but some of you, some of you I know are sitting down. This is for you, stand up, let's have a party!" And he rocked into the fuzzy, dirty bass-line of "Crawl." I didn't see anyone sitting. Although some of Caleb's attempts to get the crowd to take over vocal duties were more successful then others (Everyone was singing along to "Use Somebody"), the crowd was loud and enthusiastic and quick to clap and cheer and scream. It was a crowd anyone would be proud to have their mom see them play to.

There was even a sign-waver: "Caleb can I hav ur hankie?" Unfortunately he didn't manage to throw it that far. There's a reason why he's a musician and not a pitcher.

Caleb's sign-off was heartfelt, about how "We're up here, we're playing music, we get to play music with family... and that's the most important thing in the world." He thanked everyone again (he'd been thanking us all night), and declared, "standing up here, looking out at all you...you make this boy from Tennessee very happy." He meant it too.

The Rock n' Roll dream lives.

Kings of Leon at Bill Grahm Civic Auditorium, San Francisco: 5/21/2009

Some things are all about timing.

I've seen obscure indy bands rock bars, playing to crowds that exist only in their starry-eyed dreams. I've seen veteran rockers raise the roof like they were born to do it.

I've never before seen a band like this one. They've been rock royalty for years now in places like England and Europe but an American breakthrough always eluded them, until now. Their 4th studio album finally produced their first bone-fide radio hit, and sent them on this current tour, their first head-lineing arenas across the country, and they clearly relish their new status as stadium rockers. They've finally made good, they're touring hard and partying harder, their crash is still pending. This is what a band at the very hight of it's abilities looks like.

It looks really good. Kings of Leon are what you would get if you threw southern swamp rock in a blender with gritty urban sleaze and just a twist of high technology. It's the restrained antidote to overblown flyover rock, and it's convinced me that West Coasters like me don't really know what we're talking about when we talk about "southern music." There's something dark and almost cosmic in their sound that's unlike anything else I've ever heard. In a world before the music industry collapse, they would have been headlineing eons ago.

Kings of Leon is a family band consisting of three brothers, plus one cousin, all named Fallowill. Caleb Followill is the lead singer, and as such did most of the interacting with the audience. He was falling-over drunk, but it didn't seem to slow him down or affect his now-famous, counter-intuitive old-man wheeze of a singing voice. He kept thanking the crowd, remembering how they played San Francisco a few years back... as an opening act. "We were always opening acts." And latter, "I know there's a lot of stuff you can spend your money on right now, so thanks for spending it on us." It was all very well-intentioned. He even mentioned that the group has the day-off tomorrow, so they might end up partying with some of us. Well not me: I'm heading off to see some NiN/JAs. But it's fun to imagine anyway.

But mostly the stage banter was disposable. He gets points though for saying "This one goes out to all those people sitting down...you guys in the front, you probably don't give a shit about this one." They were wrong. Everyone cares about "Sex on Fire." It's the stuff we came for. It's mind-blowing.

Have I mentioned the show rocked? Some groups, you see them once, and you know you'll be a fan forever. That's it.

Who knows what the future has in store for Kings of Leon, but they've proven there's at least one real band left in the world who made their fortune the hard way and now get to reap their reward.