Face Of Cheam

So Kasabian at the Albert Hall. I saw this Leicester band at Earls Court and was impressed. Could they transfer their ‘arena’ sound into the classical venue of the Royal Albert Hall. The second of the three Teenage Cancer Trust I’m attending this year showed the answer was yes. After an instrumental, they launched into Shoot The Runner, and the weird mix of guitars, beats and importantly good tunes works at any level. They followed this with Reason Is Treason from their debut album and the crowd were on their feet. Halfway through the set the guitarist with the beard did a brief acoustic stint, before the band cam back and played Empire and their first single Processed Beats. They closed before the encore with the excellent Doberman dedicating it to the Gallaghers of Oasis. The final song of the night was LSI which typically the crowd were singing on the way out of the venue long after the band had left the stage. One thing I did ponder though is that their keyboard and programmer, although making it a live show were hidden behind the speakers. Had you been at the front you may have formed the impression there was a lot of backing tape being used.
Stewarding at the Albert Hall is very non existent. Had a group of girls behind me who had managed to smuggle a couple of bottles of red wine into the venue. (quite right too when you look at the bar prices here). Also it appeared that the floor area was getting more crowded as the show went on. Forgot to mention that Kasabian were introduced by the one and only Harvey Goldsmith who plugged his own TV show on Tuesdays on Channel Four! Have The Who to complete the hat-rick on Saturday. Looking forward to it!