Standing at a gig on your own it’s easy to get lost in thought and contemplate the future and such. If Miles Kane had done this 12 months ago and envisioned releasing a fairly well received album and filling great venues like the Kasbah in Coventry he was bang on.
Tonight he plays a 16 song set, quite a number for an artist with only one album ‘Colour of the Trap’ and that has only 12 songs on it. Opening track ‘Better Left Invisible’ is greeted kindly, but album opener and single ‘Come Closer’ could have set the place off like napalm.
Taking into account the 60’s influenced sound of his debut record it’s hardly surprising there are a few middle aged men dotted around the room (or maybe they are just the Dads?). It looks like by nailing the sound of a cherished era perfectly Miles is striking a chord with the older generation too.
He rips through ‘Re-arrange’ unconcerned and then crowd (and my) favourite ‘King Crawler’ which sounds like a song you should have grown up with your whole life.
In a sense Kane is not an entertainer, he doesn’t say a great deal in between songs, but when he’s playing there is a sense of excitement like a child at Christmas un-wrapping the ‘big present.’
‘Quicksand’ is another that sounds like a song that has always been etched in time, not something that was released less than 6 months ago. It’s a compliment to Miles that when he covers The Beatles’ ‘Hey Bulldog’ it sounds like it could have easily been a song of his own making.
He does finally play the brilliant single ‘Come Closer’ and ‘Inhaler’, which is the riotous finale those here had been waiting for all night.
Before he says farewell there is one more surprise in his locker, a new song ‘Womans Touch’, which hints he has no plans to halt this solo road show just yet. And that is fine with us.
Miles has come a long way since leaving The Rascals , and being one half of the brilliant ‘The Last Shadow Puppets’ and tonight he looks more than capable of owning the stage himself. His famous friend Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys fame may have helped Kane write parts of his debut, but he needs no favours in blasting out his 60’s garage sleaze on-stage, I can vouch for that.
Top Pic: Melissa Mercier