Forget your T-shirt cannons or pre-set DJ; no tool entertains a crowd quite like a fancam. Raised on sports games and rodeos, Nashville heroes Kings of Leon know its appeal, and have taken the title of their latest album When You See Yourself quite literally, plunging cameras deep into Leeds arena for an easy dose of audience participation. For a good half-hour before they arrive, the room fills with laughter and cheesy grins, creating a warmth around a band that have often been portrayed as impenetrably cold.
You don’t go to a Kings of Leon gig for the chitchat, but as the night’s two-hour opus begins, their stony-faced approach to performance remains their biggest achilles heel. This is music for acolytes of the gospel, but nothing seems to fully stir the congregation: not the heel-tapping Taper Jean Girl, not a gorgeous rendition of Manhattan lit in kaleidoscope rainbows, and not even Fans, written specifically as an ode to England. It is only a good hour in – around the point of Waste a Moment – that there are some stronger signs of life from the crowd: a pint flung during Radioactive, a lone crowd surfer during On Call whose enthusiasm makes lead singer Caleb Followill “feel good”.
It’s a shame, because this is easily the best that they have ever sounded. Their trademark skin-tight jeans have long been abandoned, but frontman Followill’s aged-whisky vocals are still glorious, their rhythm section still twanging with powerful elastic. Knocked Up is seven minutes in country heaven, while Pyro, a mournful, overlooked gem from 2010, has grown even prettier over the years, a testament to a band who seem determined to honour their 20-year history in full.
As if to prove this point even further, they close with Sex on Fire. A song they once described as “a piece of shit”, its continued presence is perhaps a gesture of goodwill. But when even a singalong this obvious fails to fully ignite, what more can they truly give an arena? Maybe it was fan boredom, maybe it was awe, maybe it was simply the unanswered desire to hear more new songs than old. Kings of Leon seem doomed to be seen as aloof, and maybe tonight’s static audience perhaps didn’t see enough of the similarities between them and the artist to meet them halfway.
