(a) setlist

1. Around Town
2. Bad Habit
3. Ooh La
4. Down
5. It Was London
6. She Moves in Her Own Way
7. Westside
8. Always Where I Need to Be
9. The Saboteur
10. Sway
11. Sweet Emotion
12. Forgive & Forget
13. See Me Now
14. Junk of the Heart (Happy)
15. Naive

(b) highlights

• seeing the Kooks for the first time!
• solid setlist and really good crowd
• being one of the smart people and wearing rainboots to avoid the tons of gallons of mud that basically no one anticipated at Firefly
• watching the show from a nice patch of grass and blanket

(c) lowlights

• was totally covered in more mosquito bites than actual skin

(d) overall thoughts

This was the first day of the Firefly Festival – the Thursday before all the major action starts taking place – so everyone was still happy and alive. I loved The Kooks when they first came out, but I had never seen them, so this was a pretty cool opportunity.

I always loved The Kooks – clearly I was and still am fond of the mid-2000’s British indie alternative – and especially loved their 2005 album Inside In/Inside Out. I liked quite a bit of their later work, but hadn’t really pursued a lot of it. So, I was pretty shocked by the crowd’s reaction at this show. Almost everyone was super into every song – newer and older. In my mind, the band were still hanging out in the 2000’s, but I guess the joke was on me because The Kooks have secretly been rising under the radar. It was so refreshing to see so many people involved in the performance – and not just for the big hits and classics like “Naive,” “Ooh La,” and “She Moves In Her Own Way” but practically every song. How cool is that.

Bottom Line: The Kooks have apparently gotten huge over the years and that is such a cool thing to experience as a long-time fan. Wish them nothing but the best – their live show certainly is worth it.

Photos by: Claudia Heidelberger