Hail to the Chiefs

I went to see The Kaiser Chiefs last night at The Commodore and had a really great evening. The first band on were The Little Ones, who were pretty tight, pleasant and poppy, but I kind of forgot them after the evening was done. Second band was The Walkmen, who can best be described as having 'flashes of brilliance' - some songs I thought to myself "Hey these guys are really good!" others I thought "Hey these guys really suck!". Maybe they'd sound better on CD - kind of a Strokes meets Velvet Underground meets Bob Dylan (circa late 60s, early 70s) kind of sound.

The evening pretty much belonged to The Kaiser Chiefs though. They have a very cool sound, much like some of the British bands who fell just outside the realm of punk in the late 70s (eg: XTC, Boomtown Rats, Stranglers) plus a little of the cheekiness of early Blur. I don't know what it is about Britain, but nobody can do boozy singalong anthems like Brit bands. I've had the chorus to "Oh My God" stuck in my head ever since.

Just one black mark against them though; on the back of the concert shirt, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal were listed under their US Tour Dates. We're North American dammit, NOT American.