Music/Kasabian
Henry Fonda Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
March 12, 2005

Around 1 P.M. a friend calls me to tell me that the doors for tonight's show open at 6pm with a sharp curfew at 9:30 P.M. It's a Saturday night, so they must have another club or something opening after the concert tonight. But it also means that if the show starts late, someone is getting cut off.

I got a late start so we didn't arrive at the Henry Fonda Theatre until 6:45pm, we were all panicked about missing Kasabian. Luckily, they went on a few minutes after we arrived. I've listened to their album at home at least a dozen times and it's a lot of fun, but somewhat mellow and it would sound awesome with a little more energy. It sounded even better then I imagined live. Their intro music was the interlude track, "Pinch Roller" and they opened with "I.D.". After blazing through a handful of hits like, "Club Foot", "Processed Beats", and "Reason is Treason" they played a couple of songs that I didn't quite recognize. They had a pretty decent light setup for a support act and the lead singer has some crazy dance moves on stage which really adds to their show. They closed with a "Cutt Off". "Reason is Treason" was clearly the highlight of their set. It's a great track and it's even better because it's just simply faster and harder live.

The Music came on shortly after 8 and I thought that was a decent time as it'll give them a nice hour and a half set and with two albums under their belt they should be able to fill up the time easily. I have to be honest and say that I wasn't really expecting much from their show because I've already seen them three times when they were touring for their debut album. The new album hasn't really grown on me... I think it's good but not great.

They opened with "Take the Long Road and Walk It" and "The Truth is No Words", two singles from their first album before launching into some of the songs from "Welcome to the North". They played "Freedom Fighters" and "Cessation" which sounded great. Again, the album versions are good, but live it's just so much better. One of the problems with the Music live is that Rob Harvey can't quite create the vocals live. The touring schedule has to get to him and I just checked out their site and according to this journal entry, he's aware of it. It's perfectly understandable since those vocals would rip anyone's throat to shreds if you had to do it day in an day out.

Other songs they played included, "Float", "Breakin", "Getaway" and "The People". During "Bleed From Within" the roadies brought out two mini drum kits for Adam Nutter (guitars) and Stuart Coleman (bass). So in the middle of the song Stuart put his bass down and assisted Phil Jordan with the drums. Then Adam put his guitar down and joined in while Rob busted out a cowbell. After a few bars, Phil played a quick fill with the drums while everyone strapped their instruments back on and they finished out the track. This was clearly the highlight of the evening. The Music closed out their set with "Disco" and left the stage shortly after 9. The curtains dropped, lights and house music came on. The show was over.

Overall the show was excellent. Everyone I was with liked Kasabian more but I enjoyed both bands equally. The only bad thing was that the show was so short. The Music should have came back for an encore as the crowd was clearly upset, but they never came back on.