KOOKS

Last night I saw the Kooks with Illinois as the opener. As usual I got there like 2 hours early and then found there was not a single person of legal age in sight. Once me and my lovely friend got in we raced to the front and had to deal with girls making fun of us in french, an overly avid fan wearing the bands shirt to the show for the second night in a row, and obscenely young guys that turned out to basically be me (every show they had or were going to go to i was as well and any band they loved i did too, oy). Skip to actual music: Illinois was amazing. They were the best openers I've seen (that I didn't mean to see ie. Raconteurs for Bob Dylan, etc) in a long long time. The singer had this mic that I'd never seen before that was a phone so it sounded muffled and just really good. I was so impressed that I was pretty upset when they had to go so the Kooks could set up and play. I had thought earlier in the day that this would be a sorta calm show since it's britpop and how crazy can britpop be? Turned out I was wrong, 'twas wild. Loved it. The band is clearly all about Luke (and he knew it) which sucked and made me sad that he was such a front man that it was basically him and a backup band. During the last song (of the encore) he climbed onto the gate in the audience and i got to grab quite a lot of calf. Hot. This was also after I realized you could see his dick quite clearly through his pants; looked nice. After it was over I felt like shit and drank too much water too fast which made things worse and I wanted to wait around because I wanted to ask Luke where he got his sweater from (why I'm not a guy I don't know since I'm clearly a dirty 14 year old) but I abandoned that idea and then realized Illinois was at their table so I bought a cd and after nearly puking on their table they all signed my cd. Once I got to the last guy (it sucks because I can't remember what he played, maybe bass?) he was surrounded by these maybe 13 or 14 (tops) year old girls who I'd seen earlier that were all wearing MATCHING (not color cordinated but litterally the same outfit) Forever-21 dresses and carrying around their shopping bags. I really felt bad for the guy, one of their names was Ariel and I guess maybe they thought it was cute to be demanding but they were shoving stuff in his face and being like "SIGN THIS AS ARIEL" or "SING LITTLE MERMAID!" and he just had a pained look on his face. Turned out he was really cool though when he started ignoring them to talk to me I told him I'd have to catch them with Hold Steady (saw it on their myspace right before I left for the show but I didn't listen to any of their music, and I won't be because it's all midwest shows I think, which sucks) and that they'd have to play with the Hold Steady at the prospect park show because it's like 5 blocks from my house. And he said how he'd try and that he'd hold me to that and asked my name and such (he said his but I was feeling really ill by this point) it was a cute flirting moment but then I had to go so there goes that. I really hope I get to see them again soon. They're music was sooo good live and now I'm addicted to the cd. My favorite songs are "One on One" and "Alone Again," you can listen to them at www.myspace.com/illinois
Also: they're from Bucks County, PA
Another also: I was of course in the middle with one person seperating me from the gate, as usual