geeettt your kooks out for the laaaaads

Remember February 2005? There were still people who hadn't heard of the Arctic Monkeys, the Myspace Revolution was in full swing, and the excited buzz on the underground revolved around fresh-faced newcomers The Kooks. Barely out of their teens, the Brighton foursome managed to storm into the public eye just in time to be considered beneficial to English rock music, rather than detrimental as so many of their successors were (see Scouting For Girls, One Night Only; who? yep exactly). If anyone was capable of breaking the second album curse that had fallen over music, it was them. BUT! Alas, The Kooks got fame hungry,their rock and roll lifestyle came before their admittedly rather good music; well you can deny it now but ten quid says Inside In/Inside Out spent precious time in yours and many other CD players across the nation that summer. The repeated rehabilitation sessions of bassist Max Rafferty added to high profile press coverage of Luke Pritchard's latest love interests and verbal slanging matches propelled the band into a high profile spotlight that lost them the respect of the ever-important, trend setting scene kids and saw the tone deaf lager louts prick up their ears. Over three years without even a hint of a new tune cemented their fan base securely as one without a taste for musical quality, rather a taste for what's popular.
And so we come to last night.
Working at Brixton Academy on the first of two sold out dates for The Kooks was not a pleasant experience. The most docile audience members were the Topshop-clad children, dropped off by their mothers and frog marched upstairs to the under-14s section away from the braying oafs that made up the rest of the crowd. Purely there for no other reason than to get mullered on Turbo Shandys, (Smirnoff Ice and Carling apparently) the lads up from Croydon and Essex were hardly able to stand by the end of the night, let alone appreciate the music. It wouldn't have mattered if The Kooks were Basshunter or Britney, the gig was a clear indication that once music hits the mainstream it is clearly not appreciated for it's quality any longer, rather it becomes a background noise to suit the hobby of today; getting wankered.