Live Review: The Kooks, The Griswolds, Catfish & The Bottlemen

Catfish & The Bottlemen take to the stage as the audience cheer.

Decked out in all-black attire, the Welsh four-piece go straight into Rango with an extended intro and outro. There's a few diehard fans standing and singing along already as the band begin their third song, Fallout. "We put an album out a few weeks ago, if any of youse fancy it", lead singer Ryan Van McCann says cheekily, as female audience members scream, right before rocking out with Kathleen. The boys play current single Cocoon and, at the song’s conclusion, an audience member presents McCann with a beer and everyone applauds.

Starting off with Right On Track and 16 Years, The Griswolds kick things off with a bang and half the crowd are up and singing along second song in.

Lead singer Chris Whitehall makes everyone laugh when he jokes that they are supporting Hi-5 and The Courtship Of Summer Preasley follows. Mississippi prompts cheers, everyone goes a little crazy when they play their cover of Riptide by Vance Joy and Beware The Dog gets everyone dancing – even the seated gang bop along. Triple j favourite Heart Of A Lion closes The Griswolds’ set, and the atmosphere is buzzing while we all eagerly await The Kooks.

The lights dim and everyone's on their feet now as The Kooks emerge, immediately getting into their first song of the night, Around Town.

A few older tracks such as See The World and Ooh La follow and punters rush forward excitedly. It Was London keeps the vibe going and Bad Habit creates a dance party mostly consisting of sexy, stripper-esque swaying, but a dance party nonetheless. Down, another one from the band’s new album Listen, keeps the party going and lead singer Luke Pritchard encourages the crowd to sing the bridge. She Moves In Her Own Way follows – an obvious crowd favourite. The band play a couple more of their older tracks, Eddie's Gun and Seaside (which Pritchard plays alone), and everyone is singing along. An acoustic version of Dreams and the punchy Westside get us all moving again, as do Always Where I Need To Be and Sweet Emotion.

Afterwards, Pritchard invites McCann to the stage to play Sofa Song with The Kooks. Forgive And Forget is the 'last song', but no one's fooled, and The Kooks return wearing Australian flags to play See Me Now, Junk Of The Heart and Naive – a great way to finish off an amazing gig.