Kasabian Have Earned The Right To Boast

The drizzly night started off with the MySpace rock of One Thousand Pictures, who seemed to have way too many members to be making such generic radio-glam music. The frontman's posing and gesturing seemed to go on a sliding scale from irritating to distracting to downright ridiculous. Sir, you are not the eyeliner-drenched lovechild of Jon Bon Jovi and Simon Le Bon. Please step off the stage.

Speaking of distracting, whoever thought Copenhagen's Mew would pair well with the British equivalent of jock rock ought to be fired. The Danes sounded like another of Bjork's disciples, with their precious childlike vocals and shoegazer soundscapes. It was all very twee and warbly, but judging by the number of loud conversations that were going on towards the back, it was obvious who most people were there to see.

Sure, Mew's freaky backdrop images definitely enhanced some of the songs — particularly the shaky lyrics in "Diamond Ring" and the weird animal imagery in "The Zookeeper's Boy" — but they tended to take away from the music itself, to say nothing of the flashes of white light that were eye-piercing.

Now, it's gotta be tough being a British rock band these days. Ever since those infamous Gallaghers made slagging bands a national pastime, it's become a pissing contest in the U.K. to see which band can better insult all the rest. Good music and live presence doesn't really matter as much as it used to. Leiceister's Kasabian, however, seem determined to be as well-rounded as possible, balancing the attention-getting NME taunts with music that might actually be as good as they claim.

(At the same time, the saying "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans" kept running through my head at this show. Note to Douchebag Supremo in the Rolling Stones T-shirt: nobody wants to see your chicken dance, you balancing a cup of beer on your head or you lifting up your shirt to shake your hairy, paste-white belly at us. Now put your negative-six pack away, quit calling me and my friends "pussy bitches" and do the human race a favour by going somewhere and asphyxiating.)

With fire in their hearts and a new album behind them, Kasabian hit the stage to talk the talk and play some rock. Opening with "Shoot The Runner," frontman Tom Meighan was in fine form, at times content to simply soak up the audience fervour with a rapturous look on his face. The crowd was eager to engage with the band all night, from the mass chanting of "K!I!L!L!" in "Reason Is Treason" to roaring excitedly every time Meighan called out, "Torontooooo... owyafookindoin?!" This happened so many times, I became half-convinced he was reminding himself what city he was in.

Although even Kasabian themselves have panned their self-titled debut album, their earlier tunes mixed in seamlessly with their newer material. The new song "By My Side" and the older "Processed Beats" are both dark, dirge-like tunes that pound heavy on the low end with almost primal-sounding rhythm sections, but you can still sort of dance to them as well.

The stuff from their sophomore album, Empire, truly lives up to its title. It's all grandiose, epic and thundering, and as well suited to a small sold-out club as it is to a European festival stage. Of course, Kasabian are wise enough to not forget their hits, as the raging "Club Foot" came in during the end of the set with enough anticipation to tense up the entire floor. They closed with "L.S.F.," which brought about a howling singalong from the audience, led by mad conductor Meighan as he encouraged "all of Toronto" to keep on going as they finished.

With the sound of the crowd's singing echoing behind them, Kasabian left the stage to find the next city to conquer. Warn your friends: the British are coming.