Something’s wrong with the air. It hums. It pulses. The walls of the O2 don’t breathe; they flex. The bassline isn’t just sound—it’s architecture, remaking the space brick by vibrating brick. People lean forward, bodies anticipating before minds catch up. The synth buzz is a starter pistol. Serge Pizzorno, part man, part permanent afterparty, throws himself into the deep end of “Call” and takes 20,000 people with him.
It’s like being dropped into a moving car. No time to adjust, just sudden acceleration. The drop slams in like a body against a barrier. The air pressure shifts, crowd density triples in the span of a breath. Someone spills their pint before taking a single sip. That synthetic pulse, that throbbing bass—it doesn’t stop. It owns the oxygen now.
Kasabian’s version of live music isn’t about performance. It’s a controlled detonation, a hooligan electro-bounce that somehow dodges predictability even when you know every note. “Club Foot” takes all available energy and redistributes it in the form of sweat and limb collisions. The opening bassline, that menacing loop, rips through the venue like a tank rolling through a red-light district. A single second of recognition, then an eruption—mosh pits form in pockets, in waves, bodies shoving against the weight of the beat.
Pizzorno doesn’t so much perform as orchestrate mayhem. He’s an instigator in a tasselled denim jacket, howling through the speaker-rattling stomp of “Underdog” like he’s conducting some feral congregation. The crowd doesn’t sing—they chant. A collective exorcism disguised as a gig. And it’s not polite. The front rows surge and shudder, limbs tangling, voices hoarse and ecstatic.
Somewhere in the middle, a disorienting shift—”treat” unfurls like a neon-lit alleyway at 3 a.m., hypnotic bassline rolling underfoot, heads down, bodies syncopating to the pulse of something bigger than the moment. The whole arena turns nightclub, sweat-slicked, eyes-closed, moving without thinking. And just as we sink into the groove, it cuts—no mercy, no warning—into the jagged riff of “Vlad the Impaler.” Pizzorno’s vocal delivery isn’t singing anymore; it’s incantation, a barked-out, full-body declaration of intent. If the previous song was surrender, this is total war. A man in a bucket hat is airborne, limbs akimbo, before being reclaimed by the pit. No one helps him up. He’s already back on his feet.
And then, suddenly—fire. Not literally, though it wouldn’t feel out of place. Just the slow-burning build of “Fire,” the final anthem, the inevitable exclamation mark on a night already written in capital letters. The stomp is prehistoric. The chorus isn’t a lyric; it’s a primal response. “I’m on fire!” screamed by 20,000 throats at once, the kind of sound that makes the city wonder what it just missed. The outro stretches, teases, loops back on itself as if refusing to let go. Pizzorno lets the crowd take it, just lets them go. The chant rolls on, minutes after the instruments have stopped, reverberating through the floor, the walls, the bloodstream.
And then it’s gone. The air stops humming. The walls breathe again. The sudden absence of sound is deafening. The floor is wet with beer and triumph. A single trainer, detached from its owner, sits abandoned in the wreckage.
Kasabian don’t do concerts. They do controlled chaos. And if you’re lucky, you leave with most of your limbs intact.
Words & photos – Richard Isaac
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