SUMMER OF KOLWith the shows in Montreal & Ottawa my #KOLAdventures2011 are over for now & I will miss being "on the road". I have seen them in UK, Scottland, Ireland, Denmark & finally Canada in 2011 & they blew me away everytime. Sadly my trip to the US turned out to be a trip without any KOL shows but I still enjoyed it & will be back.
The most important thing was that I got the privilege to travel with amazing peeps of my international KOL family & finally meet up with peeps I have known from Twitter or from the KOL forums for years now. Definately the most exciting meet up was for London, Hyde Park where we EU peeps had US peeps coming over for a few shows. We were a really international bunch of crazies! I even was contacted by some peeps I dont know that well & who heard about my travells & I spontaneously decided to meet up with them.
Whenever you have the chance to meet people of our #KOLFamily dont be shy ... just do it! You have enough in common because U love this band & you will have hours of chatter to go through! I ended up meeting KOL peeps from Finland, Sweden, UK, Ireland, Holland, NewZealand, Canada, US, Scottland, Denmark & I bet I forgot to mention some still & always had an amazing time! Mwahh guess you can tell that I am a little sentimental 2day - sorry for that - so back to the main topic: Review of Montreal & Ottawa dates.
Montreal, Ottawa 14.10.2011 - by @israelcote
MONTREALWe ended up getting soaked to the bone cause of heavy rain during line up. So spirits were a little low when the doors finally opened. We ended up making barrier Matthews side. The stage setup was a tuned down version of their big arena equipment with tons of lights still. The stage was really low & close and coming from EU shows with 80.000 people I considered the 8.000 people gig as a rather intimate. The Sheep Dogs opened and I will defo go & check out their album!
First thing I noticed when KOL hit the stage - the red smoke still physically kills me *bleurg* it stinks! - was how relaxed & healthy they looked. The break they had defo paid off & apparently gave them the chance to recharge their batteries! As we know KOL is not known for mixing up the setlist that much for the gigs but still they had up a few surprises up their shleeves. I was happy to see Slow Night So Long, Arizona, Milk & Pistol Of Fire back on the setlist. I have to say that the sound wasnt as rich as it usually is lacking a little in volume & bass but the boys were rocking it nonetheless.
As for the crowd I am sorry to say that I had the feeling that the response was rather low key. People up the seats obviously got up for crowd pleasers like Sex On Fire or Use Somebody but from the barriers view that was it mainly. I know some of you who were there might have experienced it differently but thats how I saw it. Dont get me wrong. It still was a good show but the guys & the crowd didnt connect like I have seen them do before - and I have a feeling the guys noticed too. I have to say though that I cant confirm some previous reviews that there seems to be "some tension" between the boys on stage still or a lack of communication with each other. They were joking around and seemed at ease with each other & the crowd.
It was cool to be recognised from the EU gigs and so I ended up going home with a Matthew plectrum, one of Nathan's drumsticks and Caleb's hanky. I know, I know its really fangirlish but iiiikkkkkk!
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OTTAWAI cant believe you Canadians --- Come OOOONNNN! Baha ... that was one of the most stessfull line ups EVER! And guess what why ... cause there simply werent ANY people at Gate 3 till 4:30 pm!!! Then 2 other girls showed up ... when the doors opened at 6:30 we finally were around 40 peeps (!!!). We were stressed out to the max thinking we are in the wrong spot! Being used to lining up early we couldnt believe it LOL. Also the other entrances werent exactly crowded. But hey ... cool that you are that relaxed about it
. We ended up making barrier again between Matthew & Caleb that night. Sadly this arena wasnt sold out either so we shared this amazing night with slightly below 7.000 other KOL fans (as we were told by security).
From the moment the boys hit the stage you could tell that tonight would be different & special. The crowd rocked from the start and the energy was on fire (bahaha sorry I couldn't help it). The guys loved it too and were cleary happy to play for us that night. They sounded awesome and whatever went wrong technically the previous night (or maybe it was the venues accoustics?) this time they blew my eardrums out - in a good way. They decided to skip Slow Night, So Long and Milk this time & put in Revelry and one of my favourites ... No Money ... instead.
I had the best time with 2 other girls I met only an hour before the show started & we jumped, danced and sang till we could no more. I didnt have the time and energy to look up the ranks this time but I had the feeling that the crowd singalong was awesome & there was a great connection between band & crowd.
As for being their last show of the tour it was defo a good farewell the Canadians gave them & I was impressed by the numberous crowd surfers who were fearless & made security sweat. I honestly have never seen so many crowd surfers at a KOL gig! The guys were surely hoping for some boob action when numberous girls got on their boyfriends shoulders ... I couldnt see if they delivered but from the smile on the guy's faces no matter the outcome was ... they liked it. During the end we were surprised to even see the guitarrist & drummer of The Sheepdogs joining the other crowd surfers (lost bet? LOL).
THANKS KINGS OF LEON FOR A GREAT SUMMER AND TO ALL THE PEEPS I MET THIS YEAR FOR MAKING THIS EXTRA SPECIAL! SEE YOU ON NEXT TOUR (I wont be able to make any South African or Australian dates hehe)!
Daniela
See some Montreal vids here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie7Aq1gzbnw&feature=relatedwww.youtube.com/watch?v=283RfrhXgJc&feature=related