After 22 years, Kings of Leon retains a veil of unfathomability that no fame could ever fully penetrate.
In the course of two hours and more than two dozen songs on Friday evening in the Dos Equis Pavilion, the last dregs of a surprisingly mild summer, one could be surprised again by the work – impressionistic lyrics, paired with gripping rock melodies, billowing guitars and exploding choirs – as well as the sheer improbability of the band’s continued success. (American rock music hasn’t had the biggest hit in the last decade or so.)
“She will lend you her toothbrush / She will host your party / Kill me, kill me,” says “Milk” from the 2004 Aha Shake Heartbreak. It’s amazing on paper, but on Friday night when about 20,000 people shouted “Milk” at the band, the words sounded like writing.
This amalgamation of the strange and sacred footprints with the followills – brothers Caleb, Jared and Nathan and cousin Matthew – is a much-touted backstory about growing up and participating in their father’s Pentecost tent revivals, but in a way that feels deserved and internalized as a simple, sensational marketing hook like it was in the early days of the band.
“This amalgamation of the strange and sacred traces with the much-invoked background story of the Followills about growing up and participating in her father’s Pentecostal revivals.”
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The synthesis of the worldly and the spiritual goes beyond the biography. When You See Yourself, Kings of Leon’s eighth studio album and kick-off his first stop in Dallas in four years, is rich in soulful, southern impulses that first caught attention but were driven into a sprawling arena-friendly songs who became second nature to these multi-platinum, Grammy-laden sons of Nashville.
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As Caleb, who was responsible for lead vocals and guitar, noted on Friday, the Kings at Dos Equis were a “man down”: Matthew was absent given the recent birth of his daughter. The remaining followills were supported by familiar faces: Liam O’Neil on keyboards, Tim Deaux and Dallas’ Chris Coleman interfered on guitar.
The six musicians, who are situated on a stage, flanked by large video screens, in haze and a restless tumult of lights, worked atmospherically and efficiently from the setlist of the evening, seldom let a song end before it was torn into another.
Audience and artist were consistently in sync, because the very lightly masked crowd welcomed the deep cuts with just as much enthusiasm as the worn hits.
Indeed, the first section of the evening, from the opener “When You See Yourself, Are You Far Away” to “The Bucket” in “Supersoaker” to “Taper Jean Girl” to “Revelry” in “Manhattan” and its climax with “Sex on Fire” was a comforting reminder of what got Kings of Leon to where they are and what they are still capable of.
The visceral songs expanded and contracted as needed. The wiry guitar lines intertwined with the throbbing bass and pounding drums as Caleb Followill’s wedged, passionate tenor rose above it all.
Kings of Leon was always more than the sum of its massive hits and proved it again and again on Friday nights. Standing in the Dos Equis Pavilion while the music broke like a wave over the ecstatic audience to the furthest corners of the lawn was to understand this fundamental truth – and more importantly, to feel it deeply.
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