Kasabian, Glasgow review: 'dependably raucous'

“This has been the best night of my life,” beamed Kasabian’s Serge Pizzorno, moments before the dependably raucous closer Fire bellowed into life. Bands say this kind of thing all the time in Glasgow, but something about Pizzorno’s open-hearted enthusiasm told us he might really have meant it.

The transformation of Kasabian appears to be complete, 20 years after their first release. Pizzorno’s energetic rock riffs used to support singer Tom Meighan’s laddish, Gallagheresque vocal swagger, yet the band’s break with Meighan amid his high-profile assault case in 2020 led to soul-searching and uncertainty about their future.

Cut to 2024, and this year’s Happenings is Kasabian’s second album since Meighan’s departure, both bowling to number one with no apparent interruption in service. Meanwhile the new model, Pizzorno-fronted live version of the group is a different beast, but with all the key features retained.

Wrong-footing the crowd for a moment with a sparse, solo man-with-a-mic arrangement for the opening Call, the curtain dropped to reveal the band playing amid a glow-in-the-dark inflatable skull and spider. Up front, Pizzorno has indie-rock swagger blended with the bandy-legged physical dexterity of a rap hypeman; that Mike Skinner’s The Streets played support here was a perfect combination.

The anticipated Kasabian rockers were everywhere amid this thunderous set, from Club Foot and Shoot the Runner near the beginning, to the trilogy of Vlad the Impaler, Empire and LSF (Lost Souls Forever). The minimal new material included Italian Horror and STARGAZR, the latter a poppy, catchy rumble which saw Pizzorno raving on a platform at the back of the hall.

Elsewhere, his natural inclination towards funk and disco was accentuated by the mixing of Stardust’s Music Sounds Better With You into Come Back to Me Good and both the Beastie Boys’ Intergalactic and Faithless’ Insomnia into the swaggering Treat.

As a band they always leaned towards the indie side of indie-dance, but Pizzorno and co’s recent veer in the other direction makes them much more interesting, if just as noisily cathartic.