Bigtime headliners in waiting
When Kasabian arrived on stage at 8.30 on the Saturday night there were those who had been out in the sun for several hours, standing around since the middle of the afternoon, just to ensure a decent spot for headline act Muse. The knock on effect of only one stage at a festival is that bands are pretty much certain of a large crowd regardless of how popular they are, but if there's any act who can work a bunch of people in that situation it's Kasabian. Tom Meighan is a master at firing up a festival.
The band played for over an hour, opening their set with 'Shoot The Runner' from 'Empire', and for the first part of the show they alternated between the recent and the old. 'Reason Is Treason' from their self-titled debut was next, followed by 'Sun Rise Light Flies' from 'Empire' and the first of the old singles with 'Cut Off' getting a massive reaction.
'Empire', 'Processed Beats' and 'Club Foot' all went down extremely well, however there was a noticeable lull at times when album tracks were played.
The band made sure they went out on a high with the traditional Kasabian set close of 'LSF'. At times when they headline this songs football style chant can go on for up to half an hour after they've left the stage, and Meighan certainly milked this for all it was worth with the old trick of getting different sections of the crowd to sing in turn. Amusingly the back received significant boos from those right at the front.
There are certainly bands around with more variety in their sound, but there are only a small number on their second album with the ability to work an audience like Kasabian can. With several second stage headline slots under their belt, it's only a matter of time before they graduate to the big league at a Carling Weekend or V Festival. Granted this would only properly work with a third album as once you've seen them a couple of times you begin to notice a lack of variety which means filling that length of time wouldn't do them justice, although that doesn't seem to worry the Killers this summer.