What do you give the band who have everything? After a year that's seen them play essentially the biggest stage in the world, topping the Pyramid at this year's Glastonbury Festival with one of the most ludicrously, brilliantly fun headline sets in recent memory; return home to Leicester for a gargantuan 20,000 capacity party; top the UK charts with fifth album 48:13; and basically everything in between, Kasabian have nothing left to prove.

These final gigs of the year - a short tour up and down the country culminating in a five-night residency at London's Brixton Academy - are essentially a glorified victory lap crossed with a good excuse for a piss-up. All five nights are sold out. They could probably sell out five more. But tonight - the first of the week - is not about notching any more achievements on their bedpost. Kasabian have worked hard enough for those all year. Tonight is about congregating the vast empire they've amassed in their own hedonistic church and watching the madness unfurl.


First up however, we get a treat from the opposite end of the spectrum. While Kasabian have spent their 2014 slaying everyone in their path, The Maccabees have spent the year holed up in their Elephant and Castle studio, slowly fretting over an album that they'd hoped would have been released nearly 12 months ago. By all accounts, the forthcoming album four has been a long and painful process for the band ("It's not easy. It's never easy," guitarist Hugo White sighed to NME earlier this year), but now is when they start to reveal the fruits of their arduous labour.

Choosing to debut their new material in a support slot at a venue half the size of the one they were last found selling out (Alexandra Palace back in 2012) could hint at a nervousness in their new wares. It's been a long time since The Maccabees played second billing to anyone. But tonight, there's magic in the air: these gigs aren't signs of a dwindling fire, they're the kindling for something that, in 2015, is sure to burn brighter than ever.


The four new songs they play tonight are unequivocally some of their best material yet. Darker, more forceful but with that inimitably heartfelt touch, they hit immediately and hard. 'Kamakura' sledgehammers in on the chorus, singer Orlando Weeks joined in a three-part wall of vocals by White brothers Felix and Hugo; 'WWI Portraits', meanwhile, is a broodier proposition than anything the previous toothpaste kissers have previously penned. Best, however, are the latter two offerings: 'Spit It Out' starts off in a delicate patchwork of spindly, delicate Radiohead-isms before morphing into a howling, crashing anthem, while 'Marks to Prove It' (the most obvious 'hit' of the new tracks) has people moshing on first listen. It's been a long time since The Maccabees supported anyone then, and it'll be a long time before they do it again.

If they must give way to another band, though, there are few that could take up the mantle as well as Kasabian. You know the drill with Kasabian gigs by now: the clock timer ticks down ominously until it reaches zero and then the stage lights dim and the s**t hits the fan.

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Tonight the band are on joyous, celebratory form. Guitarist Serge Pizzorno, always partial to the ridiculous, has adorned his usual stage uniform of slogan T-shirt (this time reading '20/20') and skeleton trousers with a large bushy fox tail. They bound around, get the lasers out, kiss each other on the head, beam out ludicrous backing images (the word 'trackie'; a council estate with a sign saying 'Barbados') and throw in all manner of snippet covers from Cameo's 'Word Up' to Fatboy Slim's 'Praise You'.

In between, they bring out an almost unrivalled catalogue of bangers that refuse to let the pace slip even for a minute. Say what you want about Kasabian, but they know how to work a crowd. 'Bumblebee' is huge. 'Shoot the Runner' is huge. 'Switchblade Smiles' is huge. 'Fire' and 'LSF (Lost Souls Forever)' threaten to explode the walls.

"You're very good for a Monday night," winks singer Tom Meighan. "Same time tomorrow, yeah?" By Saturday night, you wouldn't bet against them bringing the whole building down.

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