Heady Kooks could fall

REVIEW - THE KOOKS
London Astoria

EVERYONE else is wrong and I’m right. What makes me right? Nothing, except I’m the one holding the pen.
The Kooks were a heady experience on Friday if you listened to the crowd at Tottenham Court Road’s Astoria, perhaps better known for its weekly G-A-Y night, but I was left strangely unmoved.
A truly fantastic venue, even Henry out of Neighbours singing Mona would have sounded good.
And it’s not that the Brighton four-piece Indie princes didn’t sound good, and material from their debut album Inside In/Inside Out, was met with devotional cheers, claps and drinks being chucked across the swaying masses, but from my high-up vantage point they were merely adequate.
Their sound, ska-infused rock – isn’t everything these days – certainly confirms their right to be included in a line-up of NME poster boys, but that’s a bad thing. They’re just like so many other acts around at the moment, not just in their look but worse still in who they’re trying to be.
It all felt very derivative, and apart from singer Luke Pritchard, who has a warm mellow voice and a bizarre I-need-the-toilet signature dance move, the rest of the band could have been The Police, circa Message in a Bottle.
Although Luke is adamant that he doesn’t want to be known for his off-stage romances – he went out with MOR queen Katie Melua at stage school – he should be aware that going out with Top of the Pops presenter Fern Cotton is the Kiss of Death.
The problem with posters is that they can quickly be taken down. They need to be more original or they won’t last.