Fresher than Franz Ferdinand, smarter than the Bravery and cooler than all the others put together, Kaiser Chiefs are the “it” group of 2005. That could all change next week, of course, and if anyone has learnt the hard way about the vagaries of climbing the greasy pole of pop, it is the five lads from Leeds.

Having started out as a band called Runston Parva in 1997, later abbreviated to Parva, and then changed to Kaiser Chiefs in 2003, they had been rejected by every record company in the land prior to the success of their debut album, Employment, released last month.

The atmosphere at the Astoria on Friday night was electric, and finding themselves confronted by an open goal at last, Kaiser Chiefs were not about to miss the target. They came on bathed in a messianic glow of white light and belted straight into the glam-rock chant of Na Na Na Na Naa, not the best advertisement for their lyrical wit perhaps, but an irresistible call to arms which set off the hordes of kids on the dancefloor as if a starting gun had been fired.

While singer Ricky Wilson bobbed and jerked behind his microphone stand like a puppet in a high wind, the rest of the group all threw themselves with gusto into their various supportive roles. Bass player Simon Rix looked as if he had been waylaid en route to an audition for the Strokes, keyboard player Nick “Peanut” Baines was a throwback to the era of the 2 Tone nutty boys and guitarist Andrew White, in his turned-up jeans, seemed to have taken sartorial inspiration from the chimney sweep look popularised in Mary Poppins.

Narrative songs such as Born To Be A Dancer and I Predict A Riot combined wry Northern humour with a constant bustle of nervous melodic energy, while on Time Honoured Tradition, they threw a touch of vaudeville into the mix.

But whatever the direction of a given song, there was always an unmistakable energy to the performance and a killer chorus. Despite a surfeit of over-eager strobes they powered through a concise set with a pleasing air of bonhomie underpinned by a rock-solid sense of conviction. “You’ve done well my boy,” Wilson sang as they returned for an encore of Caroline, Yes. And so they had.



Kaiser Chiefs tour continues at Concorde 2, Brighton, on April 25; Metropolitan University, Leeds, on April 26; Astoria, London WC2, on April 28

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