Simply the best...

11:38am Wednesday 27th August 2008

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Kasabian, Wolverhampton Civic Hall THE atmosphere’s positively crackling with anticipation in a packed Wolves Civic.

Punters are buzzing with revered excitement, and the jostling for position is getting ever more frantic the nearer the stage you can shoehorn yourself in.

Fever pitch doesn’t come close. Even the soothing ambient-reggae tones a la Dreadzone feeding serenely through the speakers pre-gig is doing nothing to lower the temperature. And justifiably so... Kasabian are in town.

After all, it ain’t every day you get to see a bona fide festival headliner – and one of the hottest live bands on the planet – gracing your front doorstep.

Tom Meighan, Sergio Pizzorno and co may be at a crucial juncture in their musical careers, about as they are to release the all-important – and always most difficult – third album. But as a live force they have proved their astonishing pedigree time and again.

And, from the moment the band emerge through the dry ice and crash headlong into the anthemic Shoot The Runner amid a crescendo of roars and blinding lightshow, it’s already obvious tonight will be no exception.

The Leicestershire quartet have built their appeal around the whole anthem thing, and to be fair, two albums of classics have proved they’ve got it down to a tee – Processed Beats, Reason Is Treason and Sun Rise Light Flies leave the Civic wobbling on its foundations before Meighan slopes off for a ‘freshener’, leaving vocals duties to partner in crime Pizzorno for the Primal Scream-esque Me Plus One – five minutes later he’s back and fizzing, leading the mass adulation through a riproaring chant-along take on Empire, probably one of their finest live tracks to date.

The Doberman, Stuntman and (inevitably) Club Foot, interspersed with a smattering of very promising new material, lead the adoring disciples dangerously near to curfew time – it begins to feel a bit like being a little kid again and not wanting Christmas day to end – until the encores close with the seminal LSF (Lost Souls Forever) and you realise uncle Tom has saved the best pressie for last.

As 2,000-plus delirious, half-deafened punters emerged into the wet Wolverhampton night STILL singing the closing track with all the euphoria of a winning Cup Final crowd exiting Wembley, you couldn’t help but have a quick glance round to make sure the hall’s roof was still in place...