I Like To Dance All Night

Photo: Sony Music

So Christine and I casually bumped into the Kings Of Leon when we all happened to be dining and drinking at Yew on Friday night (P.S. Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens were there too!) It was a pretty stellar start to the weekend, I must say.

A humble little band from Nashville, Tennessee, Kings of Leon consists of the Followill brothers; Caleb, Jared, and Nathan, and their cousin Matthew. They are among a small handful of bands today, mainstream or otherwise, who keep themselves fresh. Their most recent album Only By The Night is a much slower paced, but cleaner sounding record than previous efforts. That's part of what makes them good, in my opinion. They didn’t just find a formula that worked and stick with it, plowing out repetitive record after repetitive record (I’m looking at you Nickelback.) Their formula is that they just click...and when they click, they write music. The Followill boys simply play amazing music without an agenda- which is refreshing.


Last night, they took the stage at GM Place for the second time in as many nights. The setlist was a perfect mix of new and old favourites- featuring tunes from all of their albums. The energy on the floor was absolutely mind blowing. (This is also why I hardly took any photos. I was way too busy singing and dancing and trying to maintain my spot in the crowd to fuss with my camera.)

It’s pretty easy to be cynical about the current state of “live” music in an era of pre-recorded tracks and lip-synching artists; but the Kings Of Leon proved that rock and roll is alive and extremely well, thank you very much, with a scintillating and booming performance last night. It was a hell of a night. I can't wait until this modest and brilliantly talented family rolls back into Vancouver.