Kasabian at Nottingham Capital FM Arena December 2nd 2011 REVIEW

Stalking onto stage on the Nottingham leg of their Velociraptor! tour, Leicester rock-pack Kasabian's lead singer Tom Meighan, sporting a a red trousers-sunglasses-and (slightly see-through) quiff combo versus songwriting-guitarist Sergio Pizzorno familiar Nigel Tufnel- haircut and Derek Smalls-moustache, kicked off the night with a bang and a banging version of Days Are Forgotten to a banging, heaving and capacity crowd.

With all their football and video games associations, the audience, although mixed, was predominately very, very bloke-heavy, and the night was awash with testosterone. Confidentially, it was probably the roughest gig we've ever been to at the arena with Kasabian fans staying true to form with their legendary inordinate amount of beer-chucking, punctuated by short bursts of fisticuffs-aggro which were swiftly suppressed by security staff (and we weren't even in the mosh pit- not by several miles.)

Meanwhile, back on stage, the band were cranking up their gig several notches with each legendary Kasabian anthem, from Shoot the Runner to Underdog to ultimate classics Club Foot and Empire and this all together with a brilliant version of Misirlou from Pulp Fiction (nice trumpet) sent the crowd wilder, louder, faster and more and more beer-drenched whilst also inspiring some impressively-expressive arm-dancing in the crowd around us, possibly the best we've ever seen. Building up to a crescendo and then leaving the stage with the whole arena la-la-ing LSF on their own, Kasabian returned with an encore that included Switchblade Smiles from their new album (which is so, so damn good live) and finished with an extended and red-hot Fire, that nobody wanted to ever go out. Mighty and monstrously good, Kasabian definitely were on FIRE, catch this awesome beast of a gig again tonight in Nottingham if you can, grrr!