The hype surrounding these four extremely young and hairy boys is reaching fever pitch. This show had to be upgraded to a larger venue after tickets were snapped-up before the ink had dried on them and their debut long player has been greeted with gushing praise. Even the touts seem to have been taken by surprise as they stalk Charing Cross Road in the hope of buying spares. Not one of them has any to sell.
But haven't we heard it all before? There's been a 'next big thing' virtually every month since five new wave loving skinny, posh boys from New York, had their arses kissed by every critic in town. And while The Strokes certainly delivered, we've been led up the garden path once too often, only to find a massive pile of steaming dung instead of a beautiful, blooming flower.
Luckily this time at least some of hyperbole is justified. Like The Strokes and The White Stripes, the Kings of Leon are imbued with a sense of authenticity that makes their revisionist formula sound totally relevant. Something all the other two-bit chancers currently plodding around the toilet circuit would kill for.
Rather than using their heroes biographies as text books and their records as a blueprint, the KoL effortlessly come across as the real deal. So much so that you wonder whether they have secretly invented time travel and arrived from 1975. Christ, you only have to look at them to understand they mean business, after all nobody walks around with those hairstyles for the sake of it.
The rapturous welcome they receive as they hit the stage is nothing short of hysterical. When they strike the first chord full on pandemonium ensues and continues for the next hour without so much as a breather. The KoL hoedown is well and truly in full swing. Not a single person stands still and every song is greeted like an old classic, even though their album was only released a few days ago.
Caleb Followill's ravaged southern drawl sounds as though it should be coming from a man at least twice his age, while his brothers and cousin bang out a sound that came from an era before any of them were born. The Lynryd Skynryd and Credence Clearwater Revival comparisons make complete sense on sunny rockers like 'Joe's Head' and a sublime, tear-stained 'Trani' while the inspired decision to nick a Blondie riff and staple it to their country rock stomp on 'California Waiting' makes for a stone cold classic.
For now, at least, the KoL wear their crowns well, but as The Strokes are finding out, hype is both a gift and a curse. How long they remain rock royalty is yet to be seen but on the evidence of tonight's show it would seem Casablancas and co will be requiring something of a civil war to regain their thrones.
