I caught the Kaiser Chiefs last night at the Bowery Ballroom. Fantastic show, with a set chock full of great songs. These guys remind me so much of Black Sea/English Settlement era XTC, it's not funny. There's quite a bit of Parklife Blur in there as well.
Singer Ricky Wilson (easily the best Ricky Wilson in rock since the late B-52's guitarist...) walked onto the stage limping his aircast-ed foot (injured in a bad landing on one of his patented mid-song scissor-kick leaps in Seattle last week) and using a cane, but half a song into the set he was leaping about as if there was Flubber in the cast.
The set was short, but appropriately so for a band with only one album out, and only a few days old for that matter here in the States. The crowd danced/pogoed/bopped through most of the set, and it's great to see Manhattan crowds continue to loosen up.
NYC's own Morningwood played a hot and tight set before the Chiefs, showcasing a great bunch of really fun and rockin' songs and a tremendously charismatic frontwoman in Chantal Claret. Brassy, funny, and confident, Chantal convinced a pretty young thing to jump on stage and dance/partially strip during their song "Take Off Your Clothes" (one of my personal fave iPod tracks of last year).
They've just recorded an album for Capitol in London under the production of Gil Norton (Pixies, Catherine Wheel, Belly, Foo Fighters), and based on the set they played tonight, the record is probably gonna be a good one.
Here's Chantal in full Robert Plant pose:
Morningwood's next show in the city is at Mercury Lounge on 27 April with The Raveonettes .
As far as the Kaiser Chiefs are concerned, they play Maxwell's in Hoboken Tuesday night. If you can get a ticket to that show, go, because that most likely will be the last show they ever play in a club that small, anywhere in the world, ever again.
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