Bristol O2 Academy, May 16th
Standing in the front row feels like watching a film write itself in real-time. It’s fiction under spotlights. Fantasy on a Monday night. His saxophonist is dressed like a Blues Brother, complete with Ray Ban Wayfarers. His drummer moonlights as Miles Kane a decade earlier; more floppy hair and attitude than image. His singer is a French yé-yé girl, complete with go-go boots and the persona of the ‘60s model who graced The Last Shadow Puppets’ album, The Age of the Understatement. One guitarist comes out in a fur coat for the sound check, and the bassist rounds the band in black tie.
Miles Kane knows what he wants; he is style, and he is substance. He is cinema and sound. He is surrounded by art, and he makes it in spades.
Kane’s stage mirrors his new album’s Change the Show’s music video, “Don’t Let It Get You Down”. It begins in a red mirrored room, with a promise from Paul O’Grady’s drag alter-ego Lily Savage to expect the “beautifully spoken” and the “up to date”. It’s the kind of wink-to-the-camera irony Kane revels in. He knows his fans have come for a little more than slam poetry and current affairs.
A smooth criminal as always, Kane covers The Beatles’ classic “Don’t Let Me Down” with the desperation of a scorned lover. Performing a heartbreak he’s never known, he’s writing his memoir in real time. It’s easy to imagine that soon Kane will walk the same halls of fame as Lennon or McCartney. He’s a time capsule for modern Britain: it’s an art he learnt on the road with Alex Turner, but one that is now all his own.
Kane’s crowd are at their most smitten when he sings “Don’t Forget Who You Are”. When it ends, his audience continue to sing the words back to him until the whole O2 Academy becomes a globe; the axis of which it turns on becomes Kane. He cannot forget who he is.
They won’t let him
@katejeffrie 
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