The Kooks
Birmingham Utilita Arena
11th October 2025 

Skinny-trousered, tousle-haired noughties survivors reap the benefits of longevity by playing their biggest shows to date. Sam Lambeth knows, she knows, that he’s not fond of asking.

How do bands graduate to headlining arenas? In the recent past, it was to write anodyne choruses that could be sang en masse without those people knowing what it even meant – Sex On Fire and Human being two prime examples. In 2025, the secret ingredient seems to be sticking around.

Earlier this year, Britpop survivors Ocean Colour Scene were comfortably selling out sizeable venues. Now it’s the turn of The Kooks, a band with equal cache in regards to gritting their teeth and grinding it out. While their contemporaries have either faded along with waistcoats and chinos or are doomed to the “playing album in full” tour purgatory, Luke Pritchard and co are now enjoying an Indian summer.

To be fair, the Brighton band deserve it. They haven’t strayed too far from the dewy-eyed, sun-drenched indie that first propelled them to stardom, but they’ve done enough experimenting to both maintain and recruit fans. Tonight, the Utilita Arena is absolutely rammed and it’s not just nostalgic thirtysomethings remembering when indie landfill wasn’t a thing. Thanks to TikTok, The Kooks have courted a whole new, and younger, audience.

Tonight, the stuttering funk beats of Down are greeted with just as much hysteria as the winsome folk pop of Shine On. They also released a top 10 album earlier this year, Never/Know, although there are a disappointing amount of songs aired from it – the main offcut, Sunny Baby, is a gloriously retro slice of hazy rock torpor.

While the band’s sound has changed a little over the years, Pritchard certainly hasn’t. Like fellow tousled noughties troubadour Johnny Borrell, Pritchard has stuck staunchly to the same hairstyle and sperm-destroying jeans that first made him the schoolgirl’s crush of choice in 2006.

Their old classics have aged just as well. There remains a widescreen beauty and depth to Seaside, an affecting ballad that Pritchard always tackles solo. Meanwhile, Pritchard and co probably can’t believe that in the year 2025 they still have to perform a song called Jackie Big Tits. But, well, it’s their own fault for writing something so darn pretty and charming.

In fact, tonight is a sterling reminder of just how strong The Kooks’ back catalogue is. Early singles Sofa Song and Eddie’s Gun have a youthful zip and swagger that get the crowd whipped up into a frenzy. Longtime foil Hugh Harris, his blonde straggly locks making him resemble a more suave Boris Johnson, tears through the solo of chugging ballad Ooh La and the spiky, portentious Sway.

There’s a bullishness to this new period of The Kooks, too. Not many bands from their era have tracks as effortlessly catchy as Always Where I Need To Be and She Moves In Her Own Way, and tonight The Kooks play them before punters are on their second pint of Madri. They are appreciated though, and She Moves…’ lilting skiffle has couples swaying with drunken glee.

Pritchard and the gang are not cocky, though. You can clearly see that they are damn grateful and appreciative to be filling out such vast venues. Pritchard asks for the audience’s help on the heartfelt See Me Now, a piano-led tribute to his late father that has the singer fighting back the tears. It’s a genuine moment that only strengthens the connection between band and audience.

By the time the rollicking album classics Matchbox and See the World are dispensed with, the audience – a rag tag hive mind of polos, vapes and non-threatening England flags – are ready for the big one. Pritchard and co don’t disappoint. Naive, like Mr Brightside, has took on another life of its own. It’s close to a billion streams on Spotify, it still soundtracks sticky indie dancefloors around the world and it’ll still be played when Pritchard is a curly-haired geriatric. As confetti shoots out around the sold out arena, and the Brighton boys take stock with satisfied smiles, this moment in the sun feels truly earned.

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You can find The Kooks on Facebook and on their website.

All words Sam Lambeth. Sam is a journalist and musician. More of his work for Louder Than War is available on his archive. You can find his music on Spotify.

All photos by Paul Reynolds. He can be found on Instagram.