Words by Ryan Brown
Kaiser Chiefs at the Globe Theatre in Stockton was a wonderful throwback to the indie bangers of the 2000’s, transporting the audience into a time capsule in a celebration of their 2005 album ‘Employment’.
The opening band was Corella whose set consisted of bright, summer festival anthems which was welcome on a cold winter night in Stockton. The energetic rhythms from percussion and bass were accompanied by colourful guitar lines and chorus’ designed for singalongs under summer skies.
Midway through their set, Corella announced they had recently been signed to record their second album, which drew a cheer from the crowd. They also played a couple of tracks from their upcoming LP including ‘Rewire’, a much heavier song which paired fast paced drums with a crunchy riff and more aggressive vocals which could signal an interesting new direction for the Manchester quartet. Kaiser Chiefs then took to the stage embracing their age with a humorous Jurassic Park style video introduction and the song ‘Walk the Dinosaur’.
The band wasted no time in setting the energy level for the evening, kicking off their run-through of ‘Employment’ with a captivating performance of ‘Everyday I Love You Less and Less’. The crowd matched the volume of the band for every word, and it was clear that the evening would be one big singalong.
At the centre of the performance was singer and frontman Ricky Wilson, delivering a masterclass in showmanship. Rarely standing still, he made full use of the stage platform for a variety of dances, played back and forth with the audience and at several points during the show, hurled his mic stand into the air with a theatrical flair.
The visual production leaned heavily into the time capsule atmosphere, with the big screen displaying a mix of archive footage of the band and era-appropriate aesthetics including Playstation One graphics, colourful cartoons, and animations akin to the early days of internet viral videos. It was playful without feeling gimmicky and a fun reminder that the band have never taken themselves too seriously.
Playing an album live in full can test an audiences stamina, there’s a risk of losing the crowd if there’s too big of a gap between hits, but not only is ‘Employment’ loaded with enough bangers to sustain the playthrough, the band performed even the deeper cuts with enough conviction to keep even the casual fans on board.
After playing the album in full, the band took to the stage again and played a selection of songs from the rest of their catalogue including ‘Ruby’, ‘Never Miss a Beat’ as well as a cover of the Ramones’ ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’. With the crowd taking turns with the band to sing an extended outro to ‘The Angry Mob’, the Kaiser Chiefs reminded everyone why their songs connected so strongly in the first place.
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