Tonight ULU is rammed full of sweaty, loved-up teenagers for the Kooks’ Valentine’s night gig. A quick swoop and it’s evident most don’t look a day over 14. Still, the bar prices are low enough to sooth any anxieties about growing old (not that I am) yet it is damning to know that band mate Hugh Harris on guitar and vocals recently turned 17.

Having met in a music college in Brighton, these happy chappies caught the attention of Virgin Records with their ditties ‘Eddie’s Gun’ and ‘The Sofa Song’. Now being touted as one of the acts to listen out for in 2006, already they’re filling up venues up and down the country, and adding a few extra dates for good measure.

As if on cue, the Kooks are fashionably late (probably struggling into their tight jeans backstage). In the meantime we are pleasantly entertained by a lad with bum fluff who plays a couple of bouncy songs before scurrying off stage to the chant of “We want the Kooks!”. The excitement perhaps due to the crowd being drunk (on love?) 

When the Kooks arrive on stage it’s good fun from the word ‘go’. For me, what makes a good gig is a band who can confidently entertain you (and themselves) and not churn out their album like a tiresome chore. Live the Kooks are a bit mellower than on their album, producing more of their happy white-boy reggae riffs and 60s influenced indie tunes. They even throw in a medley (I only recognise a bit from the Rolling Stones) assisted by the bum-fluffed youth. ‘The Sofa Song’ is a personal favourite (maybe because I can sing it when lying on my sofa) while the upbeat ballad ‘You Don’t Love Me’ tugs on everyone’s hearts, by shaping up to be a stunning finale.

Valentine’s may be the most overrated day of the year, but spending this night in the company of the Kooks is anything but that. Their only danger is tripping up on the straight and narrow and ending up as casualties of the rising Brit music scene. Like that would ever happen to the Kooks...

(3½/5)

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