On Tuesday Night I attended the sold-out Kaiser Chiefs show at Portsmouth Guildhall. Being on the same night as the Brit Awards (of which the Kaisers were not nominated) I thought this may have hindered the attendance, but with the crowd being a little older than the Brit demographic, it seemed to have little to no effect and the building was packed!!

After seeing The Wombats at this venue the night before, its good to see Portsmouth’s premier venue getting a good calibre of acts back again after a relative slump where all the big names ended up at Southampton Guildhall as there South Coast date…

I got to the venue shortly after ‘All The Young’  took to the stage, who where a worthy support for the Kaisers, provided big guitar based Indie, but in a much more ‘Viva Brother’ & The Enemy’ style than the headline act.

When I got into Music Photography I always thought the Chiefs would be a good band to photograph as Ricky Wilson always puts in an energetic performance which would make for good shots. I was clearly not alone in this idea as there were about 9 or 10 photographers in the pit, by the time they took the stage!

Opening with ‘Every Day I Love You Less & Less’ from the ‘Employment’ Album this was all the crowd needed to whip them into the singalong frenzy that the Kaiser Chiefs are renowned for. Wilson did not disappoint either with his usual energy of jumping around and microphone swinging.

The set continued with ‘Never Miss A Beat’ then ‘Little Shocks’; the title track from ‘The Future Is Medieval’ the bands LP from Summer 2011.  As the show progressed the crowd didn’t fade and kept up the heavy singalongs all night. The great thing about a Kaiser Chiefs gig is you know exactly what to expect from it; although it may not be one of those shows that is a life-changer, it guarantees to give you good solid British guitar music with LOUD singalongs from start to finish, all led by the perfect frontman in Ricky Wilson.

The Chiefs have a great knack for writing some of the biggest anthems of the last decade in ‘I Predict A Riot’, ‘Ruby’ , ‘The Angry Mob’ and the list goes on. In times that we live at the moment, gigs like this are the perfect remedy: you go to feel good and sing along and dance and escape all your problems for an hour or two. I can safely say that even though ‘Employment’ was released back in 2005, those songs still feel fresh and excite as much as they did back then.

I think they may have hit the nail on the head ‘The Future Is Medieval’ but just because something is a few years old it doesn’t mean that its past it and still can’t have a room full of fans lapping up every word.