The line to enter The Tivoli stretched right to the end of the block when the skies decided to open up and the mild Brisbane night turned into a rather wet one. The light rain did little to ‘dampen’ the spirits of the enthusiastic punters (see what I did there) as they filed into the venue, eagerly waiting for the arrival of The Kooks.

Melbourne based, Van Hoorn opened the night to a reasonably full crowd, entertaining everyone with a blend of 80s hair rock and lazy blues. Fronted by international model, Cheyenne Tozzi, the band delivered half an hour of mildly interesting noise but failed to do little else. The slower songs weren’t exactly seductive as was perhaps intended by Tozzi as she swayed around the stage in fact the whole effect became rather tedious fairly quickly.

It wasn’t long before the house lights went down again and the crowd erupted with cheers as Luke Pritchard swaggered on to the stage. The Kooks launched straight into indie-pop favourite, Ooh La and somehow the cheering got even louder. There’s something rather special about going to a concert like The Kooks who have such a devoted fan base that every single person in the room seems to know the words to the band’s entire catalogue. The joy and excitement in the room as Pritchard blasted through hit after hit was infectious and the lead singer certainly made the most of it.

Pritchard constantly swapped between electric and acoustic guitars and on a few occasions left the instrument playing to the rest of his band altogether. During ‘Sofa’ he climbed up onto a platform that had been set up along the front of the stage and danced from one end to the other. Girls were squealing and swooning left, right and centre.

‘She Moves In Her Own Way’ was dedicated to “everyone who has seen us before,” a declaration that seemed to excite at least half of the people present – The Kooks really do have an amazingly dedicated fan base. The quirky acoustic pop number that really consolidated the band’s fame way back in 2006 went down quite sensationally.

Notable the set did not include a great number of tracks from The Kooks’ most recent album, Junk Of The Heart. Perhaps this was because the band has now toured Australia three times since the album’s release and didn’t feel the need to promote it. What ever the reason, the few songs they did play, namely ‘Is It Me,’ ‘Runaway’ and ‘How’d You Like That’ were met with as much cheering and screaming as some of their older material.

In about the middle of the set the band all but exited the stage leaving only Pritchard standing under a follow spot with his acoustic guitar and a mic stand before he launched into a heart-wrenching rendition of ‘Seaside.’ There were moments when his vocals were almost completely obscured by the crowd’s singing efforts and the whole affair was rather lovely. The band members then trickled back on stage for a half acoustic, half ‘crazy-rock-out’ version of ‘See The Sun.’

The Kooks rounded off their set with the rather rocky ‘Saboteur,’ featuring Prtichard on piano, half standing, half sitting as he jumped around and bashed out what was quite an impressive solo. This was followed by the ever popular, ‘Do You Wanna,’ Pritchard bounced around the stage as if this was the last song of his life, or maybe it was because he knew that probably every girl in the room in fact did want to, “make love with me?”

There was no need to guess which songs the encore would include tonight. ‘Junk Of The Heart’ had the entire crowd dancing around as crazily as Pritchard and ‘Naïve’ was so intense the entire band, let alone the vocals could barely be heard as the audience belted out every single word. Everyone seemed to walk away from The Tivoli having had one of the most fun Tuesday nights of their lives, and quite frankly a band can’t do much better than that.

Setlist:

Ooh La You Don't Love Me Sofa Is It Me Market Place She Moves In Her Own Way Sway Seaside See The Sun Tick Of Time No Longer How'd You Like That Shine On Reach You Always Where I Need To Be Runaway Saboteur Do You Wanna --- Junk Of The Heart Naive