Chikinki

This is why I do it. This is why I’ve made a 28 mile round trip to stand around in the upstairs of a Wolverhampton pub, on a bitter Monday night, riddled with cold to stare at a stage for a couple of hours. This is why I’ve decided to miss the first night of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! Or at least it would be if my girlfriend wasn’t giving me texted updates every 10 minutes.

It’s been a couple of years since that mysterious slice of vinyl dropped through my letterbox. Just a white sleeve and label, simply etched with the legend Morning 3A and 3B on each side. It didn’t even say whether to play it at 33rpm or 45. But finally it appears we’ve got a new breed of band who have taken one look at The Cooper Temple Clause’s animated fusion of guitars and electrifying beats and decided they want a piece of the action. And the good news is that they don’t sound like Apollo 440. After Nylon Pylon’s punctuated efforts, which seemed to start and end with a handful of promising (if unfulfilling) support slots, a new breed has finally arrived. And they’ve brought their mates.

‘Celebrity is looking class already. They’re all freaked out by John Lydon. I’ll keep you posted.’

The room is scattered with canvas trainers, suit jackets, sweatbands, hooped jumpers and bird nest haircuts. The atmosphere is relaxed and I feel part of the gang. Well, I’ve got a hooped jumper on, at least. When the likes of Lester Bangs and Charles Shaar Murray were looking for the elusive factor that would blur the divide between band and audience, I bet they never thought it’d be cheap Topman accessories and pin stripe jackets, but they work tonight.

‘Peter Andre has just said he will eat the insects if they go near him, but that he is not a ninja.’

Kasabian take to the stage, pulling all the right moves, wearing all the right clothes and making all the right sounds. Their explicit use of electronics is pushed up in the mix where too many bands would shy away. A killer groove is thrown into the melting pot with an Ian Brown swagger and an effects pedal that holds a gun to your head but puts a smile on your face. The most chaotic elements of British Sea Power are driven recklessly into a head-on smash with Add N To (X), and it feels great. There’s no earth-moving originality in their sound, which was essentially nailed down the moment ‘See This Through And Leave’ hit the shelves, but Kasabian are appetising and yet tempting to the point where you want to try more until there is no more left to try.

‘Fair play to Razor Ruddock and Jordan. They had an insect helmet – but not an eel helmet.’

I know I called them the new breed earlier, but I never mentioned that Chikinki look about 17. When squinting and being generous. I don’t know if they’re trying to make up in keyboards for what they lack in age, but it’s fair to say the chap with the horn-rimmed glasses is doing a pretty good impression of a boffin. He’s hardly Johnny Greenwood – more the guy from ‘The Goonies’ who was also in ‘Indiana Jones’ and went “Booby traps!” – but when he presses a button, he presses the right one. The ordered chaos on stage appears all the while to be teetering on the brink of collapse, but if I’d have wanted to play it safe I’d have listened to a Stereophonics album. Instead I want to see people make noises that go whoosh, pop, bang and fizz while the sweat drips from the guitarist's wayward fringe. The riffs are simple yet infectious, but mostly ooze playful arrogance, while the triggered sequences steer clear of kitsch disco-pop or soulless glitchtronica.

It’d be a lie to say Kasabian and Chikinki are life-changing bands when in truth they are probably just fantastically fun live acts that may one day prove to be equally as enticing on record. But they must have done something to make me walk back to my car with a smile on my face, a spring in my step and the incentive to write this review.

‘I’m off to bed now as I have to get up for work tomorrow. I love you, I love you, I’m dancing.’