Photo: Aaron Sammut

Facing what seems to be either the ongoing effects of global climate change, the wrath of a higher power or a combination, fans brave stormy weather and descend onto the familiar turf of the Brisbane Entertainment Centre … only to remain in the parking lot and surrounding roads for an aggravatingly extended amount of time. Take my exorbitant parking fee and wave your cool lightsaber thing, can rain really disrupt the parking process that much?

Invited along on the tour by tonight’s headliners Montreal four-piece The Stills know they have a helluva job to do, and waste no time in trying to win over the audience. The multiple voices heard on their three full-lengths are well-suited to the cavernous BEC; echo-drenched and booming to the back halls. The set list does an adequate job of displaying their progression from artificial New York Cool to the more populist, anthemic approach of Oceans Will Rise, frontman Tim Fletcher witnessing the slowly growing crowd. But, like the guy who announced Jesus at the last supper, or the warm-up speaker for JFK, everyone just wants to see what the next guys have to say. Friends don’t let friends face a rabid audience who aren’t really paying much attention to you.

The eventual entrance of Kings Of Leon aptly illustrates just how meteoric and awe-inspiring their rise to prominence has been; the screams from the predominantly female audience reminds me of archival footage of The Beatles’ famous performance at Shea Stadium. Starting with the bass driven fuzz of Crawl, from the offset this appears to be a night with few surprises. The lightshow, the impressive sound rig, multiple screens alternating between bandmember close-ups and videos that appeared to be borrowed from a Dire Straits film clip … the co-ordination required for such an undertaking means that the Brisbane show is unlikely to greatly differ from the Sydney show, or any other on the world tour. This seems harsh so far, but this quartet are amazing at what they do. Even when they were poorly labeled as the Southern Strokes, this band’s songs were designed to belted out in an arena, and now they have the audience to match. Seeing them around this time last year at the Convention Centre – soon after a performance at the Falls Festival – I had serious concerns about the strength of Caleb Followill’s voice, and even by My Party early in the set there were signs of distress. But tonight he appears more confident, buoyed by sterling performances from his brothers and cousin Matthew, seen to be smoking a cigarette on numerous occasions. You rebel, you. Seemingly playing all singles and favourites before the finale, ending the encore with Black Thumbnail seems like a misfire, but it provides ample opportunity for handclaps and scraping the last strains of Caleb’s weary voice.  Oh, and they played Sex On Fire somewhere in there too, but you already knew that, didn’t you? To think that the anthem of this generation is a song called Sex On Fire … the horror. The test now is to see if these four young Southern gentleman can control the monster they have spawned, or maintain the momentum they’ve spent 10 years trying to create.

MITCH ALEXANDER

^{CHECK OUT MORE PHOTOS FROM KINGS OF LEON HERE}

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