BEGIN:VCALENDAR METHOD:PUBLISH CALSCALE:GREGORIAN PRODID:-//EVDB//www.eventful.com//EN VERSION:2.0 X-WR-CALNAME:Kings of Leon  in New York City at Madison Square Garden - Eventful BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART:20090129T200000 DTSTAMP:20090202T193541Z SUMMARY:Kings of Leon  DESCRIPTION:From Event details at PublicBroadcasting.net!: \n\nFrom Ev ent details at BoweryPresents.com!: Ages: All AgesTime: Doors 7pm / Sh ow 8pmPrice: $44.50 Kings of Leonhttp://www.myspace.com/kingsofleonhtt p://www.kingsofleon.comWhen Kings of Leon released their third album B ecause Of The Times in April 2007\, Entertainment Weekly called it the ir "crowning achievement\," while Rolling Stone wondered: "How good ca n the Kings of Leon get? They've already gone further than anybody cou ld have guessed." Coming as it did on the heels of 2003's rowdy Youth and Young Manhood and 2005's brawny Aha Shake Heartbreak\, the expansi ve Because of The Times was indeed a pivotal and game-changing album. It led the Followills - Tennessee-bred Caleb\, Nathan\, and Jared\, an d their cousin Matthew - to astonishing success around the world. In t he U.S.\, the band has sold out New York City's fabled Radio City Musi c Hall and The Greek Theatre in Hollywood. In the U.K.\, Kings of Leon headlined this summer's legendary Glastonbury Festival\, as well as t he Oxygen Festival in Ireland\, and sold out their upcoming December s how at London's 20\,000-seat 02 Arena (where Led Zeppelin held its reu nion concert) in less than an hour. But if critics thought that Becaus e of The Times was the work of a band "at the peak of its powers" (as the Los Angeles Times put it)\, they may want to reconsider that asses sment after hearing Kings of Leon's new album Only By The Night\, due from RCA Records on September 23rd. Only By The Night picks up where B ecause of The Times left off\, continuing Kings of Leon's shape-shifti ng evolution and cementing their status as a world-class rock band. "A fter three records and touring for five years straight\, we knew what we were capable of\," says the band's drummer Nathan\, "we just had to put our money where our mouths were. We had to take it to the next le vel. You always want your next record to be better than your last." Ad ds frontman and lyricist Caleb: "There's never a time that we'll make a record and won't attempt to do something better than what came befor e." With its stunning melodies\, ringing guitars\, and razor-sharp gro oves\, Only By The Night delivers on the promise Kings of Leon have sh own throughout their career. From the desolate atmospherics of the ope ning track "Closer" (which Caleb says is about a lovesick vampire) to the emotional intensity of the closing ballad "Cold Desert" ("about a man at the end of his rope who picks himself back up")\, Only By The N ight is all heart from start to finish. Album highlights include the i nsistently chugging first single "Sex on Fire" ("there's always been a n element of sex in our music\, so I thought I'd just wrap it all up i n one song and be done with the sex for the rest of the record\," Cale b jokes)\, the throbbing\, propulsive "Crawl" (about relationships of all kinds and taking them for granted)\, and the sonically sweeping "U se Somebody\," which Caleb wrote while feeling lonely on the road. "It 's about being far from home." Then there's the soaring uplift of "Man hattan\," which is partly about dancing and enjoying life and partly a bout the struggles of Native Americans. "'Manhattan' is actually a Nat ive American word that means 'island of many hills\,'" says Caleb\, wh o adds that his family has Native American blood. Finally there's the driving\, forceful "Notion\," which finds the singer pushing back agai nst anyone who says anything against anyone in his band. Caleb's insti nct for insularity is not surprising given that the band is made up of family members. The familial vibe extended to the recording process w hen Kings of Leon returned to Nashville's Blackbird Studio in April 20 08 with their long-time producer Angelo Petraglia and Nashville-based producer/engineer Jacquire King\, who also mixed Aha Shake Heartbreak. "Angelo keeps it fun and youthful\," Nathan says. "He and Jacquire we re cool enough to tell us when we really needed to stop playing Wall B all and get serious\, rather than being stern and scaring the shit out of us. It kind of took the pressure off." Petraglia and King also enc ouraged the experimental process the Followills first engaged in when making Because Of The Times\, giving the band the freedom to explore a ll of their ideas. "We had the opportunity to really get in there and be more hands-on as far as the production goes\," Caleb says. "We want ed to prove ourselves a bit more. We got to kick our heels up\, have d rinks\, and relax while recording." Adds Nathan: "You can tell from th e music that we're definitely comfortable." "To me it sounds like the Kings of Leon are back not only as a band\, but as friends\," Caleb sa ys. "Every night after recording we'd go to a bar together\, hang out and talk about what we were going to do the next day\, rather than all of us going to our separate homes. It was really a big family vibe. T hat's where the title comes from. It's also a reference to a poem by E dgar Allan Poe\, and it has five syllables\, like all of our album tit les." Caleb had written most of the lyrics and melodies for Only By Th e Night during some downtime at home recovering from shoulder surgery. "I think the pain pills inspired him a little more than he realized\, " Nathan says with a laugh. "He would play us a song and we'd say\, 'W hen did you write that?' and he'd say\, 'I don't really remember writi ng it. I just woke up with an empty bottle of wine and my songbook ope n and these words written down.'" Says Caleb: "Those pills can make yo u feel so nice. I think a lot of the pretty melodies came from that an d from me just opening more." Another influence could be their experie nces playing arenas\, not only in support of Because Of The Times\, bu t while opening for U2 in 2005 and Bob Dylan and Pearl Jam in 2006 and 2008. "We definitely wanted the songs to sound good in a 15\,000-seat venue\, but we also wanted them to have the kind of intimacy that wou ld get the point across at a club show for 300 kids\," Nathan says. Ov erall\, the Followills knew it was time to be honest about their ambit ions and prove what they could really do. Caleb\, for one\, unleashes some of the most righteous\, anguished singing he's ever recorded. "I knew it was a risk for me to go in there and really open up and belt t he way that I know that I can\; the way that I used to when I was youn ger\," he says. "I just hid my singing for so long because I was nervo us that people would listen to my lyrics\, assume I wasn't intelligent because I'm from Tennessee\, and pick me apart\, so that's why I sang the way I did. But going into this\, I knew these melodies that we we re playing were too beautiful for me to fuck it up. I had to go for it ." "Basically we got the point where we realized that we can be known as a band that hit it hard for three records and disappeared\, or be a band that was smart enough to realize that not very many bands get to make four records\, so let's make the most of this\," Nathan says. "B ecause honestly\, we were horrible housepainters and that's what we'd be doing if we weren't doing this!"\n LOCATION:Madison Square Garden @ 4 Penn Plaza, New York, New York 1000 1 United States SEQUENCE:1233603341 UID:E0-001-017480849-0 URL:http://eventful.com/E0-001-017480849-0 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR