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Live Recap: The Kooks and Vaccines with Daisy the Great

The Kooks, The Vaccines and Daisy the Great all rocked a sold out house at The Riviera to kick off the St.Patty’s Day weekend in Chicago.

The musical duo of Kelley Dugan and Mina Walker, AKA Daisy the Great, warmed up the Chicago crowd with a set that showcased the pair’s beautiful vocal harmonies along with their spunky energy. Daisy the Great performed the first song they ever released as a band, called “Record Player,” as well a few from their most recent “Tough Kid” EP, but they also introduced some brand new and unreleased material to the Chicago crowd. Dugan introduced one of the newer tracks saying, “This is our last new song, it’s about going on a walk. This song is called ‘Dog.’” Another fan favorite of their set was the song “Liar,” which Dugan explained was about having a secret crush on a friend—relatable!

After a quick changeover, it was time for The Vaccines to grace a Chicago stage for the first time since 2018, when they headlined a sold out Lincoln Hall. I luckily got to see The Vaccines in London in 2019, but it was still long overdue and great to have them back in my hometown—because the only vaccines I had in the meantime were covid and flu vaccines, and the band is a much better experience.

Each time I’ve seen The Vaccines, I know they’ll be great, but they never fail to impress me with just how topnotch they are as performers. This tour was in celebration of their new album Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations that they just released this January, and not only do they never miss in the witty and catchy songwriting department, but vocalist Justin Hayward-Young remains consistently charismatic (or as the kids would say nowadays, he has rizz). Whenever he wasn’t stationed in front of the mic stand so he could play guitar, Young slinked and danced his way across the length of the stage. The Vaccines’ stage presence has this effortlessly expressive and cool edge to it, yet it’s affable enough that they still feel approachable.

Although they had a relatively quick set length of an hour, the band still packed in hit after hit, mixing in plenty of fans’ old favorites between new material from their last album. Their set wrapped up on a peak of some of their most popular songs, including my personal favorites “I Always Knew” and “If You Wanna.”

Continuing the theme of familiar favorites, The Kooks kicked off the closing set of the evening with “Seaside” from their debut 2006 album Inside In/ Inside Out— which started simple with lead vocalist Luke Pritchard performing solo before the rest of the band joined him onstage. While The Vaccines were celebrating a new album on this tour, The Kooks were actually spotlighting the anniversary of their debut album, so naturally the set list featured the majority of Inside In/ Inside Out’s track list. True to form, “Seaside” is the first track on the album, and the live show followed suit for the first handful of songs, delivering hit after hit to the eager crowd.

While the band often moved from standing upstage to playing on platforms at the back of the stage, Pritchard alternated from playing guitar to roaming freely around the stage as he sang. During some of their songs, Pritchard even showed off his dance moves that were reminiscent of the infamous Hugh Grant dance scene in “Love Actually”— it must be a British thing. The crowd cheered loudly each time he danced, and they weren’t shy about cheering through out the rest of the show. For example, before “Bad Habit” fro 2014’s Listen, fans mimicked the chorus-like melody back in chant-form.

As we got closer to the finale of the evening, Pritchard told the audience, “If we’re gonna go ballistic, now is that time” before playing “Always Where I Need To Be.” The Kooks wrapped up their main set with “Junk of the Heart (Happy),” but returned to rowdy cheers to perform an encore of “Around Town” and the fan favorite “Naive.”

If you’re looking for a jam-packed night of feel-good songs and nostalgia, make sure to grab a ticket for when the tour hits your city and check out the photo recap of the Chicago show below.

Live Recap: Barns Courtney and The Kooks at The Riviera 02.21.19

This past Thursday night, The Kooks returned to Chicago for the first time since the release of their fifth studio album, Let’s Go Sunshine.

After Future Feats opened up the show, singer-songwriter Barns Courtney warmed up the packed house, getting everyone ready for The Kooks with a blaze of energy. Courtney burst onto the stage to join his live band as they opened up with an unreleased track “Fun Never Ends.” The high energy song set up the crowd to expect a good time from Courtney’s set, and he definitely lived up to that expectation as he sang through songs from his debut album and some new singles. As Courtney sauntered across the stage and put his all into his music, an appreciative fan shouted “you’re the coolest person ever!” Based on the amount of audience members dancing and singing along, both on the floor and in the balcony, it seemed that most agreed with the enthusiastic fan. The spirit of Courtney’s set culminated during the final few songs “Kicks” and “Fire,” in which the singer first crowd surfed, and then finished out the set singing the latter in the middle of the crowd.

Needless to say, Barns Courtney’s set left the crowd buzzing and ready for The Kooks, who hit the stage performing one of their classics “Always Where I Need To Be.” From their years of playing together, the band members had a sense of chemistry and ease about them that perfectly complemented lead singer Luke Pritchard’s captivating stage presence. Alongside the band’s long history of playing together and their lengthy setlist that pulled songs from every chapter of their extensive discography, The Kooks also had an impressive light show that added another special touch to their live show without being overpowering.

While the mood remained very energetic for most of the night, allowing for Pritchard to show off his dance moves, the set did slow down during the performance of “See Me Now” from 2014’s Listen, which Pritchard dedicated to his late father. Pritchard performed the emotional song at the piano, sans his bandmates. Although a hush fell over the crowd during this song, with everyone giving their undivided attention to the stage, the energy quickly picked back up when the full band rejoined Pritchard for “Pamela” from the latest album. While the band members kept their onstage chatting to a minimum in order to focus on the music, they didn’t shy away from fleshing out their songs with special, one-of-a-kind live arrangements. During “Bad Habit,” the band extended the introduction as Pritchard and the audience members partook in a call-and-response style chant, and during “Seaside,” the audience sounded like a choir backup Pritchard’s vocals in the simple song.

Eventually the time came for The Kooks to leave the stage, but it didn’t take long for the crowd to request an encore performance. Instead of the traditional “one more song!” or “encore!” chants, the crowd asked for the band to return by chanting the vocalized introduction to “Bad Habit” once again. The band obliged and returned with “No Pressure” and “Naive.” Before they began the final song of the night, Pritchard dedicated that night’s performance of the 2006 single to fan named Jeffery, giving one lucky fan a very special memory of the evening.

The Kooks wrap up their North American tour this week— see their live dates here, and check out our photo recap of Thursday night below.

Listen to Let’s Go Sunshine in full below

Live Recap: The Kooks and The Academic at The Vic Theatre 5.30.18

This past Wednesday, The Kooks returned to Chicago for a sold out show at The Vic Theatre, returning for the first time since 2015 when they played the same stage. The show had originally been slated for October 2017, but the band pushed the gig back to May in order to work on completing their fifth studio album Let’s Go Sunshine, which will be this August. 

Following a short but sweet set from The Academic that warmed up the crowd, The Kooks made their highly anticipated return to the Vic's stage, opening their set with "Eddie's Gun" from their 2006 debut album Inside In/Inside Out. The band made the wait for their comeback worth it by not only playing fan favorites like "Ooh La" and "Bad Habit" from their expansive discography, but by sprinkling in brand new songs throughout the set in order to showcase what they had been hidden away working on the past few years. Frontman Luke Pritchard expressed the band's gratitude for their fans, calling out all the different The Kooks t-shirts from the past years in the audience. When he wasn't expressing gratitude to the crowd, Pritchard often chatted between songs, providing backstories about the lyrics. During the songs, Pritchard pranced around the stage, making sure that he connected with the entire room by working his way across the whole stage. 

While the set remained high energy, the mood remained dynamic with the band occasionally switching up the pace by having Pritchard perform a song at the keyboard, or by having guitarist Hugh Harris perform a song on his own. After the first part of the set, Pritchard returned on his own to sing "Seaside" as the opener of a 3-song encore, asking the crowd if they were up for a sing along before beginning. Judging by the echoes of the lyrics coming from all parts of the venue, the crowd was definitely into singing along, as they had been most of the evening. The set wrapped up on a high note with "Always Where I Need to Be" and "Naïve," the group leaving the stage to thundering applause. 

Check out our photo gallery of the evening below, and see which cities The Kooks will be hitting next on this tour here. 

Preorder Let's Go Sunshine here and keep up with The Kooks on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram