Wow, it’s been just over three years since the last time I saw the Kooks perform live in concert. So I was pretty darn excited to see the British wunderkids at the intimate setting of the Bowery Ballroom.

Just before 10pm, the guys swaggered onto the stage, and the young ladies (let’s call them “Kookies”) in the front of course went mad — screaming and outstretching their arms before a single note was played. When I looked over at Luke Pritchard, I was pleased to see his burning love of V-neck shirts had not been forgotten after all these years — there he was in all his acute angle-loving glory, sporting a red V-neck shirt (seriously, this man has never met a V-neck he couldn’t love), skinny jeans, and boots (obvs.).

The Kooks hit the stage and the crowd went bezerkies.

I don’t know what it is, but there is something so magical about seeing The Kooks live. Without fail, I always have a great time and leave the venue with a smile on my face — and this time was no exception. I started off the show perched in the balcony, but (as anyone who has ever been to a concert with me) about 4 or 5 songs in I could barely contain myself — so I headed down to the floor to be with the “real” fans, and shake my groove thaannng.

The set was a mix of old favorites, like “Naive,” “Seaside” (encore), “Shine On,” and new songs off their forthcoming album, Junk of the Heart, like Lou Reed “Satellite of Love”-esque piano-based B-side “The Saboteur” and the extremely catchy “How D’Ya Like That“.

Pretty lights.

The new songs sound absolutely fantastic — they are a bit more romantic sounding, with a touch of new-wave influence, heavily synth and keyboard based tunes. A nice progression for The Kooks — a softer, more sensitive side, but definitely not faltering on some infectious hooks.

Luke Pritchard‘s got them moves like Jagger.

Something I also find amazing about this band is how polished and professional they are each and every single time I see them. When they come out, they just nail it every time — every Kooks concert is like a “greatest hits” jam because nearly every song they play is extremely catchy. It’s only a testament to their talent as songwriters, consistently churning out winning track after track.

After getting a sneak peek listen at the new songs during this show I CANNOT wait until their new album comes out in September. The boys are back, and better than ever! <3 <3 <3

I know this photo isn’t very good, but this is what I imagine Luke Pritchard looks like in all of those fangirl’s dreams.

Yes, I know, Hugh Harris (aka – “Hugh Kooks”) looks like he’s auditioning for a Flock of Seagulls tribute band, but you gotta love him.

When Luke Pritchard smiles, the whole world (or in this case, Bowery Ballroom) smiles too.

“Yessssssssssssssssssssss!” New drummer Chris Prendergast was pumped!

Thank you, thank you very much.

Girl wills The Kooks back to the stage via lit lighter.

This girl got up on some dude’s shoulders and clearly wanted to make love to Luke Pritchard.

“Heeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Catch you later dudes and dudettes!”

This week British boy wonders The Kooks will be playing Rumsey Playfield at Central Park with New York rockers Stellastarr*. Rounding up the lineup are Illinois and Marques. Sounds like an absolutely lovely way to spend a summer evening, no?

Photo taken in June at Terminal 5

Get tickets on Ticketbastard.

Last night I was watching Bad TV, and as a punishment I was subjected to watching this Michelob Ultra ad, which has the Kooks “Shine On” as the theme song. Well, at least this is not nearly as bad as that Hives “Well Alright” Sears commercial that I not only hear on TV but also on radio.

Oh FANTASTIC, there’s an alternate version. Just what I needed:

Yesterday was the perfect weather for a special acoustic performance on the top of the EMI Building in the Flatiron District. Better yet, the band performing was The Kooks!

As their bandmates got to sit back and munch on some of the complementary hot dogs and hamburgers, Luke Pritchard and Hugh Harris took to the stage set up overlooking downtown Manhattan.

Luke stopped after the first song, “Naïve”, and asked if anyone had a pair of sunglasses because he was “dying up here,” and quickly someone produced a cool pair of white Wayfarers. Luke glanced over at Hugh, who was wearing a pair of tortoise shell Ray-Bans as well, and declared that they were like the “yin and yang of sunglasses.”

With eyes properly covered, the duo continued to strum out a total of three additional Kooks songs: “Ooh La”, “Always Where I Need to Be”, and my personal favorite off of their new album Konk, “Tick of Time”.

Here’s R’s video of them doing “Ooh La”:

In a flash, the set was over, much to the dissapointment of the crowd. But the boys did have to head over to get ready for their Terminal 5 show, so c’est la vie.

More at Black Book, Limewire.

Last night The Kooks played to a quite young and enthusiastic crowd at Terminal 5. As per usual, the Kooks performed their songs with stylish precision–doling out each song in such a perfect manner that if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought that they were pulling a Milli Vanilli on us all.

Luke Pritchard, look into my eyes…and give me Blue Steel.

During the time I was waiting for the band to go on, I remained amused and entertained by making some observations about the first few rows of the crowd:

1. Teenage girls L-O-V-E The Kooks. Seriously, if I was a 16 year old Anglophile female living in the suburbs, yet somehow managing to have great taste in music, I too would be in love with at least one of the members of the Kooks. OK, I’m not even 16 years old any more and I am still probably in love with one of the members of the Kooks. (Try to guess which one.)

2. Boys love the Kooks equally, but will not admit it. So right behind the hold steady of female fans lined up and down the front row was a solid string of MALE fans in the second row. I swear to you, first row = all girls, second row = all dudes. Which made me think two things: A. Sausage-swingers love the Kooks as well and B. Guys at Kooks shows are at least nice enough to let little girls stand in front of them instead of being the obnoxiously TALL GUY in the first row. (All you dudes who have ever stood in front of my during my youth at Coldplay and Travis shows, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND I BET YOU ARE STILL ALONE BECAUSE NO GIRL LIKES A GUY WHO STANDS IN FRONT OF SHORT GIRLS AT SHOWS.) Err.. sorry.

3. Kooks fans basically love anything made by other British people, or by people British people love. Hence all the singing along to Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35″ and the clamor caused by the Arctic Monkeys’ “When the Sun Goes Down” coming on the PA system before the show.

Anyhoo, when 9:30 rolled around the band hit the stage–with lead singer Luke Pritchard emerging in a white t-shirt, skinny jeans (natch), and a charming gold headband that he stole from Mary-Kate Olsen’s accessories drawer adorning circumference of his head. And as I’m describing this, I’m sort of realizing what the appeal is of impossibly stylish and skinny men such as Mr. Pritchard to the young women of the world.

You want even MORE t-shirts and skinny jeans tucked into boots? YOU GOT IT!

SKIP THIS PART IF YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT WHAT TEENAGE GIRLS THINK ABOUT
It’s like this: These guys are basically the non-gay versions of their gay boyfriends. Do you know what I mean? It’s like hi, I’m a 16 year old girl and I hate high school, but I love my friends. One of my best friends is Paul, this tall skinny guy who dresses awesome and is totally gorgeous, but he’s also totally gay. But Luke Pritchard is all the things my gay boyfriend Paul is, BUT HE’S NOT GAY. And he’s British!! And we can totally share clothing!!! And unobtainable. *Dreamy sigh*

With every shake, shimmy, and false crowd surfing jump that Luke made, the crowd squealed and swooned accordingly. As they ran through oldies like “Matchbox,” “Naive,” “Time Awaits,” “I Want You Back,” and “Eddie’s Gun,” the audience sang along passionately.

New bassist Dan Logan fit right in with the original 3 Kooks. (Original bassist Max Rafferty left the band in January of this year.) Looking a little like Jesse Bradford in Bring It On, Dan was definitely getting high marks on the girl approval rating. And judging by the way he was dress, I envisioned the tryout process for the band going like this:

Luke: Do you like v-neck t-shirts?
Dan: Yeah.
Luke: How do you feel about skinny jeans?
Dan: I like them alright.
Luke: What about tucking them into boots, even in the middle of June?
Dan: I could swing that.
Luke: Are you opposed to wearing women’s jewelry or hair accessories?
Dan: Well, no, not really…
Luke: Alright mate, you’re in the band.
Dan: Erm… do you want me to play the bass first?
Luke: No, that won’t be necessary, thank you.

Although the set was heavy on old songs, they did break out some new ones like my second favorite song on the album, “Do You Wanna,” as well as “Shine,” “Sway,” “Stormy Weather,” “Always Where I Need to Be,” and a cover of The Kinks song “Victoria.”

The encore featured a version of “Seaside” and “Jackie Big Tits,” with Luke doing some weird impromtu vocalization at the end of each–basically messing up the sing-a-long-ability of “JBT.” But he made up for it by doing some mild crowd surfing during the last song of the night, “Sofa Song.”

Video of the knee-surfing:

Openers The Morning Benders seemed like a perfect match in terms of the demographic of the audience. Comprised of four innocuous looking young men with perfectly poppy tunes, the Berkley quartet were probably loving all of the supportive whooping coming from the audience. However, after the show the lead singer caused a giant clusterfuck along the exit path as little ewoks huddled around him asking him to sign their CDs and chit-chatting with him. Gasped one girl to the other, “Ohmigod, it IS HIM!”

More from the show (and from the previous night’s show) over at WNEW, Ska Punk Photos, Brooklyn Vegan, Black Book, Prefixmag

The sophomore album by British rockers The Kooks is now out in stores.

I took a few spins of the album today and was all in all impressed. As readers of this site will recall, I absolutely adore the Kooks, so I had high expectations (and a little trepidation) for the new album.

Although some of the songs do in fact sound a tad like tunes off of Inside In/Inside Out, there are some surprising turns, most notably the disco dance hall-worthy “Do You Wanna” which won me over with it’s booty-shaking chorus “Do you wanna? Do you wanna make love to me?”. I can see skinny hipsters attempting to drunkenly scream above PA systems in seedy dive bars across the world.

Other faves are the acoustic version of “Tick of Time” and album starter “See the Sun”.

Have you taken a listen? What do you think of the new tunes?

Read more reviews over at The Guardian UK, The Independent, and The Times.

Also check out this video of Kooks frontman Luke Pritchard performing for Spinner:

Hey everyone, I’m back from my mini-break (I’ll post photos later), but I just happen to catch Conan last night and saw that The Kooks will be playing the show tonight! Hooray!

From the press release:

The Kooks will premiere a new track, “Always Where I Need To Be” from their forthcoming album, “KONK” on Late Night With Conan OBrien tonight, February 14th, at 12:35am EST (11:35pm CST) on NBC.

Having sold over 100,000 copies of their debut ‘Inside In/Inside Out’ in the US, as well as selling out every US tour to date, The Kooks just played a few intimate gigs for fans in Los Angeles and Brooklyn in anticipation of their next album. Their sophomore effort, ‘KONK’, will be released state-side on April 15th, 2008 via Astralwerks. Stay tuned for the announcement of their biggest US tour to date.

I was kinda bummed that I missed them in NYC two nights ago (I had just gotten into the city at 6:30 and then I went to dinner at Babbo for my birthday–RETARDED DELICIOUS, BTW–plus the snow, plus I was in no way going to make it to Brooklyn.), but now I’ll get to see them in some capacity.

Ooohhhyeaah! The Kooks will be releasing Konk, their second album on Astralwerks on April 15, 2008.

Here’s the dish:

Taking its name from Ray Davies’ studio in North London where it was recorded, ‘Konk’ will be released in the US on April 15, 2008 on Astralwerks. “Konk” follows up to their debut album ‘Inside In, Inside Out’, which was also recorded at Konk Studios and has sold close to two million copies worldwide since its release in 2006.

After recording the album over a seven week period in London, The Kooks recently decamped to LA, where they are putting the finishing touches to the album with producer Tony Hoffer. Track titles on ‘Konk’ include ‘See The Sun’, ‘Shine On’, ‘Do You Wanna (Make Love To Me)’, ‘Disappear’, ‘Lonely Cat’, ‘Sway’ and ‘Stormy Weather’.

While in the states, The Kooks are also taking to the road for a series of special holiday shows.

Dec. 14th – KBCO Holiday Concert Series – Boulder, CO
Dec. 15th – KBZT’s Holiday Hootenanny – San Diego, CA
Dec. 16th – Alice in Wonderland – San Francisco, CA

So when I’m on vacation, the last thing I want to do is go do work. Apparently Luke Pritchard of the Kooks does not have the same work ethic as I do, because this past Sunday he performed an semi-impromptu acoustic show at Soundfix in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, despite the fact that he’s in town “on holiday”.

The set was slightly delayed by the fact that his cab driver dropped him off on the wrong street (presumably Bedford and South 11th instead of NORTH 11th), forcing him to hoof it to the record shop. That would have been a great sight to see–Luke Pritchard strolling down Bedford, guitar in hand, appropriately dressed for Williamsburg in a gray v-neck American Apparel shirt, skin-tight black jeans and boots, causing double-takes by passers-by.

When he did arrive, he treated the small crowd to a short set of Kooks favorites like “Ooh La”, “Naive”, and a “Seaside”/”See the World” medley as well as a great cover version of Bob Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue” before strolling out as casually as he came in.

More at Sentimentalist Magazine

As long time readers of this site probably have realized, with my old age I have tended to frequent concerts less and less–therefore when I actually DO go out, it’s a big deal for me. It has to be a band that A. I know and love or B. I am really curious to see.

Much to the chagrin of some jaded Brit readers, I have been a Kooks fanatic for quite some time now, and was blown away by their first/last set of New York performance at North Six in Brooklyn. So much energy, so spot on with the performance and delivery–I thought that level of awesome couldn’t be matched. Oh how I truly underestimate the Kooks fans–they are CRAZY, as I witnessed again at The Kooks/ Illinois show at The Filmore at Irving Plaza. I keep forgetting this fact until I find myself caught in the crossfire of a wave of alarmingly fanatical adoration directed at Kooks frontman Luke Pritchard.

It’s so rare these days that I’ll go to a indie rock concert and the band and the crowd will be so in sync–so together in their desire to have a good time and so willing to let loose and not be concerned with “looking cool” or any of that mumbo jumbo–that being at a show like this really gives me hope that there are still people who are into having fun at concerts.

The setlist according to this photo found on Flickr: Sea Side/ See the World/ Eddie’s Gun/ Matchbox/ Ooh La/ Come on Down/ Time Waits/ She Moves/ Oil/ Sway/ Sabateur/ Naive/ Always Where/ You Don’t Love. Encore: Dissapear/ Make Love/ Sofa Song

I also want to say openers Illinois were excellent as per usual. Every time I see them the are better than the time before. If a band like the Cold War Kids can be “big”, Illinois should rightly be so as well. IMHO, they have more flair, better songs, and more charisma than Cold War Kids + Tapes ‘n’ Tapes combined. If you haven’t heard them yet, hit up the Myspace for a listen.