It’s the quadruple-platinum selling album that brought the likes of Naive, She Moves in Her Own Way and Ooh La to our airwaves.
And despite it feeling like it was yesterday, Inside In/Inside Out is now 15 years old.
The album was first released in 2006 and is back on tour playing the Victoria Warehouse.
Following an opening set by Scottish indie rock band The Snuts, which got the crowd bopping happily, The Kooks took the stage.
Fans filled the cavernous warehouse on this chilly Thursday in February and waited with breath spiralling to the ceiling for the opening chords.
Would they jump right in with something boppy like Eddie’s Gun? Or would they play the album through and kick it off slow with Seaside?
It’s Seaside. They’re starting acoustically and from the beginning. Luke Pritchard’s vocals are completely drowned out by the crowd.
It's like the last 15 years never happened as Pritchard's voice is exactly as it was on the CD.
Immediately after, the rest of the band joined Pritchard on stage and ripped into See the World seemingly following the layout of the album.
The crowd all jumped, swayed, removed their layers.
Sofa Song followed, as expected, blue lights flooded the stage and the crowd all danced out of step and in tune.
Three songs in and Pritchard introduced the band, thanking the crowd and shouting:
“Thank you for having us back in your beautiful city, live music is back!’
The crowded screamed their support before he added:
“We’re gonna play the whole f***ing album tonight! It’s been fifteen years!”
Ooh La and You Don’t Love me followed with so many phones filming, you could see the purple, pink and red lights reflected on the screens of 2,000 people.
Pritchard takes a moment to check with the crowd and says: “I’m feeling f***ing amazing, you guys are wicked!
“It’s been such a longtime, it’s been so nice to reconnect and be human.
“Let’s sing a song together.”
The opening chords to She Moves in Her Own Way are struck and the crowd begins to dance: hips moving, jigs occurring, Pritchard stopped singing to let the crowd take over to bop and dance and shout.
Bad Habit created a question and answer of ‘oh oh ohs’ with the audience as the band moved away from their debut album.
This was followed by their new single, Connections which caused a sway.
The diversion from Inside In/Inside On continued with Shine On.
A few more classics from Konk and Inside In/Inside Out were played before the band ended the set with Junk of the Heart, introduced by Pritchard who shouted:
“We love you so dearly, you beautiful creatures.
“This is our last song, so goodnight!”
Matchbox started the encore and No Pressure followed, the crowd happily sang and danced along.
Should we be so Naive to think that this is the end of the show? No, they end with it.
As the band prepared to leave the stage, Pritchard thanked the crowd and dedicated the show to a fan called Lauren who passed away recently.
5 stars
