Having lost my concert-virginity
only last summer (yes, it’s shameful), I was relieved to have booked an array
of concerts throughout the summer of 2012. I finished my small marathon of live
music only this month ending, just as I started, with a favourite rock band of
mine.
To start of the time-line, I will
set the scene of 2011 summer as I, along with a group of friends, travelled to
Hyde Park on what was looking like a pretty promising day. This was a first
experience for the majority of us and we had numerous doubts, although we paid
through Gigantic (a well-known ticket agency), that something would go wrong or
our tickets would be fake. The supporting acts were a wild little band, The Zac
Brown Band, who had a more chaotic Mumford and Sons farmer/banjo vibe to them and were a
complete success when it came to riling up the crowd. They were followed by The
White Lies, of whom I was somewhat a fan of previously, and despite sounding an
exact replica of their recorded material were incredibly underrated
audience-wise, possibly due to their minimalistic stage presence but whom I
enjoyed nonetheless. Two supporting acts is a pretty lengthy build-up by anyone’s
standard so by the time Paul Weller came on stage, the whole crowd, I included,
were simply awaiting the main act.
Kings of Leon presented
themselves in a true rock’n’roll yet
incredibly casual manner, just rolling up on stage, grabbing from a range of
guitars, holding cans and bottles of beer and tequila and the first song soon
become a catalyst along with the audiences built-up anticipation that resulting
in a mosh pit. The majority of their set-list consisted of songs from Come
Around Sundown, starting off with Radioactive, however they threw in a good
measure of classics. Closer, Crawl and Pyro were my absolute favourite of a
night that was topped off with fireworks and in all honesty, whilst it was a
long wait, I am pretty proud of losing my concert-virginity to Kings of Leon.
Moving onto 2012, my personal
holy grail of music gigs, I lined up some beauty’s starting with an unexpected
Bombay Bicycle Club (a birthday present) who were a mellow dosage of indie rock
with some amazing female supports; Lianne La Havas who brought out her debut
also this year and the shy yet warming vocals of Rae Morris who has only a few
pieces of EP material floating around as I am currently aware.
If there was any such evidence to
the phrase “put on a show” it would straight-up be Coldplay’s 2012 Mylo Xyloto
Tour. Our promise on the train home from seeing Kings of Leon the year before
that we would next see Coldplay had become reality. Even before I stepped into
the Emirates Stadium, I managed to spot a man in a giant elephant costume (see,
Paradise music video) and was given my very own “Xylo-Band” the significance of
which, apart from a small flashing light, I was yet to witness. On entrance
into the stadium, I was transported into the world of their vibrant album cover
for every conceivable part of the set was covered in graphitized lyrics and
otherwise. The show itself was absolute genius and not to ignore the obvious
talents of the band themselves, who were even greater live, let me just fill
you in with a few extras: Simon Pegg graced the show displaying unknown talents
with a harmonica, Rita Ora and Robin were great supports, giant bouncy ball were thrown over the crowd in a pure
festival style, confetti was released and the Xylo-Bands flashed in accordance with
the song lighting up the whole stadium against a dark night sky. This was
pretty much the definition of magic.
