Plasma Pool

Kings of Leon live at the Festival Internacional de Benicàssim (2007)

I first saw Kings of Leon in March of 2005 at Mississippi Nights, a seedy yet charming venue in a fairly enervated section of downtown St. Louis. When it existed, Mississippi Nights was the place to go to catch new bands on the brink of stardom; a performance there seemed like a final omen before the crossover from obscurity to frat party playlist status. Mississippi Nights has since closed; the venue owners met an unfortunate fate when, in early 2007, the venue property owners, Pinnacle Entertainment, refused to renew their lease, reportedly because Pinnacle planned to raze the venue and replace it with a casino parking lot. Mississippi Nights bridged a gap between two other local venues, The Creepy Crawl (tiny, dingy) and The Pageant (big, new). The Pageant and Mississippi Nights sometimes booked the same acts, and I assume this likely resulted from conflicting venue schedules for a specific date, or a band simply wishing to move on to a bigger place. However, if the latter still existed, I’m confident that less mainstream and pop-image-conscious bands like Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks or Black Rebel Motorcycle Club would almost certainly rather have played there, as opposed to playing at The Pageant, which may have been a bit too large for their more modest fan base.

That 2005 Kings of Leon show at Mississippi Nights easily ranks in the top five of the sweatiest, most stripped down, raw rock shows I’ve been to. Their show on November 3 at The Pageant didn’t come close to it.

I first knew something was wrong when, prior to the Kings coming onstage, the sound engineer cued a Rockyesque introduction. It seemed like they were trying to insinuate a larger-than-life image of themselves, an epic persona. Not a good start. I was expecting big, but I wasn’t expecting typical. Make no mistake, I wish artists success, but sometimes when they gain it, a certain connection is severed as my appreciation of them becomes a sort of nostalgia. Sometimes artists concentrate on image much too frequently as they become thrust into the spotlight, and this can be damaging to the music in the sense that the band’s “performance” is no longer completely, or even primarily, about the music. I couldn’t discern then whether that epic intro was deliberately designed to convey a “Hey, we’re big, rich rock stars these days!” feel, but as the performance went on, my inference became more valid.

The show soon jump-started with “Closer,” the first track on their new album, Only By The Night. This was followed by “Crawl,” which is another new one; and like “Closer,” it’s one of my favorites. The brothers (and cousin) Followill were poised, but lacked their usual unbridled griminess. Older songs like “Molly’s Chambers” seemed slowed and contrived, stripped of the Kings’ customary garishness. A few exceptions were “Four Kicks,” “McFearless,” and “Slow Night, So Long,” which were the most true to form, and best moments of the evening.

Things soon lost what luster they had when lead singer Caleb had his roadie bring him a shot of something in a plastic cup. The roadie stood there uneasily until Caleb finished addressing the crowd, then handed him the shot-chaser, which in this case was Gatorade. Is a roadie really necessary here? Guitarist Matthew scolded his own roadie, apparently for forgetting to put a straw in his drink. I saw the twirly index finger inside the cup, which Matthew directed bitterly at the assistant, then saw a straw appear and drew my own conclusions. The Kings’ drinking was awkward, but their smoking was paradoxical. The show was non-smoking—which, at The Pageant, is always dictated by the band—yet two members smoked on stage. The website says “non-smoking show,” but the band smokes. A small discrepancy, but inconsiderate to smokers who paid to see a non-smoking show become, for the band only, a smoking show. It’s strange that a band with enough power to bar smoking from a venue for an evening would choose to violate its own rule, making themselves look flighty and thoughtless.

Unless, of course, they assumed that the crowd was under the impression that The Pageant sets the smoking rules for its shows, and that disregarding The Pageant’s rule would prove them rock-star rebels against authority. But this was not the case, as these rebels were rebelling against an imaginary authority of their own creation. Matthew’s causing a fit over a drink lacking a straw befit such imaginary rebels, as did Caleb’s forcing his roadie to wait around awkwardly with a bottle of Gatorade while he whooped it up with the crowd. Whatever Caleb was gabbing about was lost in the symbolism of his hapless roadie, whose sole purpose seemed to be to wait around awkwardly holding a bottle that could have just as easily been set down on the stage by Caleb’s feet. Who’s really sure that the “rebellious” suit was one the band wished to don? I’m not. But for a crowd member unfamiliar with venue stipulations, that the band was being “rebellious” was a valid assumption to make. Rebels don’t need straws, nor do they need an errand boy to hold a drink for them. Rock stars—even rock stars who flout authority—know how to pick up and set down a bottle of Gatorade. These antics, so readily ignored by the audience at The Pageant, would have had little place at Mississippi Nights.

The set finished with “Knocked Up” and “Charmer” from Because of the Times. Caleb directed “Charmer” at Sarah Palin. It was a righteous comparison, and the song was tough and assertive with every “Whaaaa! She’s such a charmer, oh no!” The show closed successfully with this return to what I like the most about the Kings—their tendency to remember the fans who know where they came from, and their realization that even at a venue as quasi-commercial as The Pageant, they can shed the celebrity skin and get to work.