Kings Of Leon

Birmingham NIA

words and pictures by James Watkins

The Worlds biggest rock band, Kings Of Leon, made a welcome return to the West Midlands for two sell-out shows.

Hailing from Tennessee, the band of brothers (Caleb Followill, Nathan Followill, Jared Followill) and cousin Matthew Followill have completely ripped up the music scene with multi-million selling albums worldwide and headline slots on some of the biggest festival stages in the world.

Kings of Leon gave a regal performance

Their take on bluesy Southern rock has endeared them to the masses and a hyperactive crowd warmed to them at the NIA.

Walking on stage to the biggest ovation of the year at the National Indoor Arena, frontman Caleb Followill stood rooted to the floor as the chords of Radioactive bellowed through the monster speaker stacks and started to blow the crowd away.

Raising the tempo with Crawl from their mega selling album Only By The Night, the four-piece punched above their weight in a show packed with pure rip-roaring power and emotion.

Continuing the pace and playing through Molly’s Chambers and the anthemic Fans, they slowed the pace down with Mary and an awe-inspiring Mi Amigo that was played to perfection.

Southern rock sent the crowd into a spin

Highlight of the night was the spine-tingling and epic Pyro, that saw mobile phones held in the air to light up the whole arena in a 4-minute moment of pure magic.

There were more stand out moments, including the melodic foot-tapping Southern swash of Back Down South before the epic Use Somebody.

Sex On Fire then bellowed through the darkness, causing pandemonium, before the night ended with Black Thumbnail.

KOL had delivered one of the year’s finest gigs with their inimitable rock-godesque aplomb.