PHOTOS: Kasabian @ Royale 09.16.17
During the last weekend of August, England’s famous twin festivals Reading and Leeds took place, if you don’t know what Reading and Leeds festivals are, they’re two music festival that happen simultaneously and feature the same bands on different days, so say for example you wanted to see headliner Eminem perform, you had two chances, either Saturday at Reading or Sunday at Leeds. Other headliners for the weekend were global superstars Muse, and one of England’s best kept secrets, a rock band by the name of Kasabian.
During Reading and Leeds weekend Kasabian performed headline sets to roughly 80,000 people at each site. In their native England, there are few bands as big as Kasabian, comparable acts the US would be Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam or Red Hot Chili Peppers – yes they’re that popular there. But over here in the States, folks have yet to catch on. On Saturday night Kasabian was in Boston to play the 1,200 capacity Royale nightclub, a show that if it took place in London, would probably be shut down due to the madness that would ensue around it. But here in Boston, it was just the loyal music anglophiles who came out to see Kasabian play, and they were treated to something amazing.
Kasabian performed nearly the same exact set for the Boston crowd that was barely pushing 1,000 as they did for the 80,000 at the festivals just a few weeks ago. Royale Nightclub took on the feel of one of the famous festivals with that unique community atmosphere of the music festivals in the UK, an entire crowd completely engrossed in every aspect of the show.
The remarkable scene took place in front of a less than capacity crowd at the intimate nightclub. Kasabian didn’t even have music for sale at the merch table as they’ve yet to ink a distribution deal in the USA. It’s not too often an artist’s popularity levels vary as much as Kasabian’s in the US and UK but when it happens the US fans are incredibly lucky to see it. The band’s performance was tight and polished as you’d expect from an arena level artist.
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