18 March 2025 – Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane – words and pictures by Bec Harbour
Compared to the previous Saturday night at the Fortitude Music Hall, the mall outside almost felt deserted and there were only a few people lined up to catch Kasabian’s Brisbane show at 6.30. This all changed quickly as people emerged from the surrounding restaurants and pubs as the 7pm doors open rolled around and everyone got in line.
First up we had local Brisbane band, Friends of Friends who recently had their EP launch at nearby venue The Loft. Their line-up has had a bit of a shuffle about with the addition of Jess (??) on bass which has rounded out their indie stylings nicely with the 2 guitars providing that bit more depth. Barnaby Baker is a charismatic frontperson wrapping around the mic stand and the rest of the band providing the perfect steady backing for this to happen.
Friends of Friends – FMH – photos by Bec Harbour
Blossoms come with a fair amount of fanfare from their home in Stockport, Greater Manchester in the UK. They might just be the band that you have heard but not heard of and they have already done great things in their career (touring with The Charlatans and The Courteneers and appearing on the Reading and Leeds Festival line-ups). At first I thought, appearance-wise, they looked like our own Lime Cordiale with singer Tom Ogden’s 70’s style mullet and baggy suit! Blossoms are riding the high of their latest LP Gary and the last single released ‘Mariah Carey through Death Valley’. People were very keen for Blossoms and were cheering and calling out to the band. Blossoms list Dire Straits, George Michael and The Smiths as some of their biggest influences – whatever it is, it blends together in a happy pop-neo soul way.
Blossoms – FMH – photos by Bec Harbour
The ex-pats from the UK are out in force tonight and there are a dozen different accents I can pick from the crowd, Kasabian were a huge part of music in the UK and around the world in the early 2000’s. With their usual pomp and ceremony, it seems that Kasabian have found Australia’s best hype song, ‘Am I Ever Going To See Your Face Again?’ (there were some confused looking Brits at this point) and the US’s favourite hype song, House of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’ to bring the band onstage. Serge Pizzorno bounded onto the stage – his joy at the crowds reception visible to all and launched into ‘Call’ then the song that probably most people in this crowd (and age bracket) heard first – ‘Clubfoot’.
Kasabian – FMH – photos by Bec Harbour
After ‘Ill Ray (the king)’ there is a bit of banter with the crowd here and the tickety-tick intro for ‘Shoot the Runner’ sends the crowd into a frenzy. They are no less frenzied (good work for a weeknight punters!) for ‘Underdog’ from their album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, an album for me that epitomises the music from latter part of the first decade of the 2000’s. Everyones voice joined in word-for-word on this one.
Kasabian – FMH – photos by Bec Harbour
We move on through ‘Re-wired’, ‘You’re In Love With a Psycho’ and with a borrowed intro of ‘Music Sounds Better With You’, for ‘Coming Back to Me Good’. The crowd are told to get on one another’s shoulder (very few comply) but the jumping about and dancing makes Serge happy anyway. ‘Italian Horror’ and ‘stevie’ are up next, followed by ‘hell of it’ and ‘treat’, which has an intro of ‘Intergalactic’ by the Beastie Boys for this tour.
The borrowed intros continue for ‘Vlad the Impaler’ with ‘Insomnia’ by Faithless and a spoken word piece by Michael Caine for the set closer ‘Empire’ from the album of the same name.
Kasabian – FMH – photos by Bec Harbour
It wouldn’t be fair to come all this way without an encore and encore they did! ‘LSF’ complete with Serge getting into the crowd and up to the balcony with hundreds of phones trained on his antics then the closing song, ‘Fire’. Kasabian draw a huge crowd every time they come to Brisbane with the faithful bringing their best dance and singing with them. It was an absolute cracker of a show.
