Kaiser Chiefs, Edinburgh review: 'Employment doesn't want for hits'

Programming an album and programming a live setlist are different beasts – as the Kaiser Chiefs’ 20th anniversary performance of Employment demonstrates, writes David Pollock

Kaiser Chiefs, Edinburgh Castle ★★★

“I Predict a Riot the second song there,” noted Kaiser Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson early on at the first of this year’s Edinburgh Castle concerts. It’s a matter-of-fact statement, but it betrayed a little about the format of the gig.

For this tour, the Leeds indie contingent are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their 2005 debut album Employment by playing it in full, and something in Wilson’s tone seemed to say, ‘yeah, we know the set’s just opened on a high with two of our most entertaining songs – Everyday I Love You Less and Less and …Riot – but let’s see how the rest of it goes’.

Frontman Ricky Wilson and Kaiser Chiefs (Picture: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty)

Employment doesn’t want for hits; the two openers were followed up immediately by the more reflective Modern Way and soon after by the strident Oh My God. The gap in intention between programming an album and programming a live setlist soon became apparent, though.

In the latter context, the record’s second half meandered, through the middling glam of Saturday Night to the Syd Barrett-flavoured Britpop of What Did I Ever Give You? “That one isn't very well known, but you enjoyed it, right?” enquired the hopeful Wilson.

On they ploughed through the deliberately ramshackle Time Honoured Tradition, the middling grunge of Caroline, Yes, the noisy psychedelia of Team Mate and the enjoyably rowdy Take My Temperature, complete with its amusingly awful knock-off Jurassic Park video.

Perhaps the most entertaining part of this section was Andrew White’s guitar malfunction, which sent sharp-witted former The Voice judge Wilson into a few minutes of time-filling stand-up, and then an entertainingly improvised song about Edinburgh. “And people say we just go ohhh nanananana,” laughed Wilson, having stylishly gotten away with it.

After that the strictures of the album were behind them, and the last half hour was thoroughly crowd-pleasing, including a feisty Blitzkrieg Bop cover, the big hits Never Miss a Beat, Ruby and The Angry Mob and the anthemic synth-rock of Hole in My Soul. Everyone went home happy in the end, but it’s always a risk bringing an enthusiast’s album show to a mini-festival environment.