Kings of Leon
When
Jan 29, 2009 8:00 pm (Thursday)
What
From Event details at PublicBroadcasting.net!:
From Event details at BoweryPresents.com!: Ages: All AgesTime: Doors 7pm / Show 8pmPrice: $44.50 Kings of Leonhttp://www.myspace.com/...
Improve this event listing
These people love this event
Join the conversation
Event details: Kings of Leon
Description
From Event details at PublicBroadcasting.net!:
From Event details at BoweryPresents.com!: Ages:
All Ages
Time:
Doors 7pm / Show 8pm
Price:
$44.50
Kings of Leon
From Event details at BoweryPresents.com!: Ages:
All Ages
Time:
Doors 7pm / Show 8pm
Price:
$44.50
Kings of Leon
- http://www.myspace.com/kingsofleon
- http://www.kingsofleon.com
- When Kings of Leon released their third album Because Of The Times in April 2007, Entertainment Weekly called it their "crowning achievement," while Rolling Stone wondered: "How good can the Kings of Leon get? They've already gone further than anybody could 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 expansive Because of The Times was indeed a pivotal and game-changing album. It led the Followills - Tennessee-bred Caleb, Nathan, and Jared, and their cousin Matthew - to astonishing success around the world. In the U.S., the band has sold out New York City's fabled Radio City Music Hall and The Greek Theatre in Hollywood. In the U.K., Kings of Leon headlined this summer's legendary Glastonbury Festival, as well as the Oxygen Festival in Ireland, and sold out their upcoming December show at London's 20,000-seat 02 Arena (where Led Zeppelin held its reunion concert) in less than an hour.
But if critics thought that Because 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 assessment 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 Because of The Times left off, continuing Kings of Leon's shape-shifting evolution and cementing their status as a world-class rock band.
"After 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 level. You always want your next record to be better than your last." Adds 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 before."
With its stunning melodies, ringing guitars, and razor-sharp grooves, Only By The Night delivers on the promise Kings of Leon have shown throughout their career. From the desolate atmospherics of the opening 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 Night is all heart from start to finish.
Album highlights include the insistently chugging first single "Sex on Fire" ("there's always been an element of sex in our music, so I thought I'd just wrap it all up in one song and be done with the sex for the rest of the record," Caleb jokes), the throbbing, propulsive "Crawl" (about relationships of all kinds and taking them for granted), and the sonically sweeping "Use Somebody," which Caleb wrote while feeling lonely on the road. "It's about being far from home." Then there's the soaring uplift of "Manhattan," which is partly about dancing and enjoying life and partly about the struggles of Native Americans. "'Manhattan' is actually a Native American word that means 'island of many hills,'" says Caleb, who adds that his family has Native American blood. Finally there's the driving, forceful "Notion," which finds the singer pushing back against anyone who says anything against anyone in his band.
Caleb's instinct for insularity is not surprising given that the band is made up of family members. The familial vibe extended to the recording process when Kings of Leon returned to Nashville's Blackbird Studio in April 2008 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 were cool enough to tell us when we really needed to stop playing Wall Ball 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 encouraged the experimental process the Followills first engaged in when making Because Of The Times, giving the band the freedom to explore all 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 wanted to prove ourselves a bit more. We got to kick our heels up, have drinks, and relax while recording." Adds Nathan: "You can tell from the 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 says. "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. That's where the title comes from. It's also a reference to a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, and it has five syllables, like all of our album titles."
Caleb had written most of the lyrics and melodies for Only By The 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, 'When did you write that?' and he'd say, 'I don't really remember writing it. I just woke up with an empty bottle of wine and my songbook open and these words written down.'" Says Caleb: "Those pills can make you feel so nice. I think a lot of the pretty melodies came from that and from me just opening more."
Another influence could be their experiences playing arenas, not only in support of Because Of The Times, but 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 would get the point across at a club show for 300 kids," Nathan says.
Overall, the Followills knew it was time to be honest about their ambitions 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 the way that I know that I can; the way that I used to when I was younger," he says. "I just hid my singing for so long because I was nervous 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 were 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. "Because honestly, we were horrible housepainters and that's what we'd be doing if we weren't doing this!"
Cost
$44.50More about these performers
Kings of Leon
“I think people tend to expect a certain sound from us,” says Kings of Leon’s drummer Nathan Followill, “but on this record, we tried to throw them for a loop.” Indeed, it’s not business as usual on the Nashville-based quartet’s ambitious, eclectic new album Because Of The Times. Where Kings of Leon’s last release, 2005’s Aha Shake Heartbreak, was “a fuzz-encrusted rocket of controlled violence,” as Rolling Stone put it, packed with emphatic two-minute bursts of raunchy guitars, brawny drums, and growled vocals, Because Of The Times finds the Followills (brothers Nathan, Caleb, and Jared, and their first cousin Matthew) opening up, rela...More about Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden New York, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, has been the name of four arenas in NYC. It is also the name of the entity which owns the arena and several of the professional sports franchises which play there. There have been four incarnations of the arena. The first two were located at the northeast corner of Madison Square (Madison Avenue and 26th Street) from which the arena derived its name. Subsequently a new 17,000-seat Garden (opened December 15, 1925) was built at 50th Street and 8th Avenue, and the current Garden (opened February 14, 1968) is at 8th Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station. One Penn Plaza stands at the side.The arena lends its name to the Madison Square Garden Network, and sister channel MSG Plus, two cable television networks that broadcast most sporting events that are part of the Madison Square Garden schedule, as well as concerts and entertainment events that have taken place at the venue. In 2007 the Arena came second as 'World's Busiest Arena' after the M.E.N. in Manchester, England, United Kingdom.
Madison Square Garden also refers to itself in its advertising campaigns as "The World's Most Famous Arena."
Madison Square Garden New York, is located in Manhattan on Seventh Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets. The Madison Square Garden schedule and tickets are available at the Garden Box Office, and Ticketmaster online, phones and outlets.
Madison Square Garden 4 Pennsylvania Plaza New York, New York 10001
For up to date information on the Madison Square Garden schedule of events, please call 212-465-MSG1 (6741)
Links
- [Info] Event details at PublicBroadcasting.net!
- [Official Site] Official Website
- [Info] Event details at BoweryPresents.com!
- [Tickets] Buy Tickets at Ticketmaster.com!
- [Official Site] Official Website
- [Info] MySpace Link
- [Tickets] Buy Tickets
- [Tickets] Buy Tickets at Ticketmaster.com!
Add link
Post a Countdown Widget
Countdown to this event with your own widget! You can customize it and post one on your website, MySpace page or blog.
On the MySpace bulletin board page click "Post Bulletin".
Paste code into the Body section and add a Subject to your bulletin.
Then click "Post" and you will be brought to the confirmation page.
Click "Post Bulletin" on the confirmation page and you're done!
Leave a comment after signing in or joining.