After including the Kings of Leon song “Sex on Fire” on NOW That’s What Ed Calls Music 2008, I finally made it out to see them play live last night.  Much has changed since late 2008, including the massive popularity of the band, along with a couple of other top singles.  I missed their performance at Red Rocks last summer due to Pig-Fest, though I’ve heard from multiple sources that it was a great show.  The Red Rocks show was sold out, so this summer they decided to move to the newly renamed Comfort Dental Amphitheatre (formerly Fiddler’s Green), which is around twice the capacity of Red Rocks.  Again, I’m told it was a sellout show, but there was plenty of room in the lawn where we stood.  I’m sure the nonstop rain yesterday helped to deter people from coming out for the show.

I met a group of friends at a nearby restaurant before the show started.  We had planned to get in early to watch the opening bands, but the rain forced us to stay inside and have another round of drinks.  We thought the five and six-dollar drinks were expensive there, but once we finally made it to the venue we quickly realized we’d be paying nearly ten bucks for beer for the rest of the night.  We did arrive while it was still drizzling, just before the Kings of Leon took the stage.  We were able to easily find a good spot on the lawn and patiently waited the start of the show.

The band took the stage with dueling canons erupting red fog throughout the stage.  The opening song was a familiar one for myself titled “Crawl” from their most recent release Only by the Night.  From there the band detoured into lesser known material from their earlier albums.  “Sex on Fire” came near the middle of the set, which was a little surprising, but it could be fitting as most people are likely growing tired of the song by now.  The sound mix heavily favored the bass notes, which normally isn’t a bad thing, but it left the lead guitar nearly inaudible at times.  I wish I could have heard the limited solos a little better.  Caleb Followill, the lead singer of the band, sounded great and his commanding voice is definitely what leads the band.  I also thought that the drummer, Nathan Followill,  was especially good last night.

The stage production was pretty good.  Though really simple, their massive light structure was effective and interesting.  It consisted off many randomly placed stage lights pointed in every direction, all in white.  I definitely could have used more color in the mix, but the cool part was that pieces of the structure would move up and down at various points throughout the night.  Going along with the lighting scheme, the screens showing the band were in full black and white.  It was done rather interestingly though, with what appeared to be rather cheap cameras constantly switching from one to the next, along with interesting angles and shots.  It sort of reminded us of an old video from a recording studio.  To cap off the night, the light structure collapsed on itself, accompanied by a series of firework explosions.  Overall it was a good night out watching a good performance.