MILES KANE | LIVE REVIEW
Tramshed, Cardiff, Fri 29 June
Forgive the overzealous attention seeking and questionable clothing – Miles Kane is very much a man of his own. Prowling onto the stage in nothing more than a pair of skintight, snake-print trousers, even the sight of Birkenhead’s golden boy is enough to induce a moshpit and a half, if Cardiff’s Tramshed ever did see one.
Opener Counting Down The Days is only a warmup, an exercise in the rough and tumble of his retro rock, spasmodically soundtracked to a fair few bellows from the beer bellies of “Miles, Miles, do the ayatollah!” Not that Kane’s ego needed to be massaged further. The one-two punch of Inhaler and Taking Over near-literally knocks half of the crowd out, turning the venue into an arena for the survival of the fittest. This intensity carries Kane throughout the entirety of his set, bar the doe-eyed acoustic lament of My Fantasy, which is delivered through his soothing, soft Scouse drawl, if those words could ever fit in the same sentence.
At the expense of some of the other hard-hitters from his back catalogue, such as Kingcrawler and Telepathy, a cover of Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff serves as a breather from the rip-rollicking riffs that comprise the first half of his set. This change of tone doesn’t diminish after one song. Under Kane’s command, like giddy children following the orders of a DJ at a school disco, the crowd is forced to swap all the pushing and shoving for a bit of moving and grooving for latest single, Coup De Grace. The title track from his forthcoming third record renders as damning evidence that there’s a reinvigorated freedom to Kane’s onstage persona – an unbridled energy demonstrating his awareness that the stage is his stomping ground. A notion clearly supported by his army of devotees, who lap up each and every drop of the song’s glam rock/disco infusion.
Tonight, he remains true to himself by vanquishing the idea that he is not capable of leading his own parade as an authentic solo artist. Perhaps, the lyrics of Don’t Forget Who You Are have finally started to ring true: maybe even Miles Kane is finally starting to practise what he preaches.
words SOPHIE WILLIAMS photos JASPER WILKINS