The Kings of Neon.

Can you see the band in the photo... no? neither can I. Hidden in the distance, behind all the lights, are those modern purveyors of popular music known as The Kings of Leon. We went to see them last week and this is the photo from the back of the LG Arena in Birmingham. They had a mightily impressive light show with different colour schemes for virtually every song and the strobes were an epileptic's nightmare. The Band themselves must all be shy retiring types because they were in silhouette for most of the gig and didn't really engage with the audience much at all. Even when Caleb did speak I couldn't make out what he said, he just mumbled. I must admit though, it made a refreshing change from singers bellowing ' I can't hear you' at the audience which is really annoying.

I had not been to the LG arena before, it's quite a nice venue with food outlets, bars and even acoustic live music laid on before the main event. Nice except for the toilets that is which seemed to have been designed with mind-bending incompetence. There are no urinals, they are all cubicles which were full so the men had to queue which caused much confusion and head scratching, we men are not used to the relevant protocols. Each cubicle contained one of those thin boxes used for disposing of used 'Women's things' which were clearly pointless. The cubicles were so small that there wasn't room to stand up and open the door; I had to squeeze myself in next to the pan to be able to open the door enough to get out. This caused much cursing and bemusement by my fellow users attempting the same manoeuvre. On the way out I checked I hadn't wandered into the Ladies by mistake, I hadn't. It's possible some wag had switched the signs on the door. I should have made more enquires about the ladies facilities.

They had people selling bottles of beer out of those wheeled trolleys that old ladies use to do their shopping. One of these venders managed to knock his trolley over and all his bottles rolled across the floor to our feet, we assisted him in picking them up and putting them back in the bag. I don't expect he told his customers to open them carefully or they could be sitting through the gig soaked in beer. It was nice to see the venue had complied with their responsibilities with regards to disabled access but this didn't actually extend to letting the disabled patrons see the band. The disabled section was in the standing area at right angles to the stage. All they could have seen was the people standing in front of them. Let's hope they went for the atmosphere.

Anyone who has been to gigs such as these will be aware of their uniformity, it generally starts with he touts outside attempting to sell or buy tickets. It always seems strange to me that, if you have tickets to sell, why would you buy more? If you don't resell them you make a loss. I expect they know what they are doing. A large number of people who attend gigs are numerically challenged. The marshals had to shift people round us on two occasions because they were in the wrong seats. It's not difficult, the number is printed on the ticket, you are guided by a marshal and the numbers are on the seats. At every gig people sit in the wrong seats and then take umbrage about being moved. The seat ballet is hotly followed by where's Wally. This involves someone on the phone behind you trying to locate someone he knows somewhere in the audience and generally follow the lines of, 'what.... the left of the stage... by the stairs...which stairs, are you near a blonde girl in a white shirt?... I can't see a blue shirt... now, now walking past now...wave now... yes wave.....you said left of the stage do you mean right' so on and so forth. The trouble is you can't help but look for their friend as well. About this time you get the Mexican wave which seems to go round and round for ever. Fortunately we were spared this particular annoyance this time. There is generally someone on your row that continually gets up to go the bar and toilet you have to keep getting up to let them through.

At the end of the gig there is the rule of the encore. Every band does it from the humblest pub rockers to the mighty giants. The set finishes, they say good bye the band leave the stage while the lights go down, the audience cheer and stamp their feet for five minutes and the band come back on and do another couple of numbers, usually their most famous ones which they have been saving. I have even seen bands come back on when the audience weren't interested. What a farce. There is no point to it, it's just what's expected. As the stream of drunk, tired and happy fans stream out the venue's exit door there are the dodgy men selling knock off T shirts all laid out on the pavements outside. They are probably the ticket touts from earlier, I guess every business needs a bit of diversity. The next part of the proceedings is the half hour wait to get out of the car park with nothing to alleviate the boredom except laughing at people who have clearly forgotten where they parked the car. Sometimes they even start arguing with each other round an empty parking space.

There was a slight difference this time though at the encore. The band had launched into their last song 'Sex on Fire' they were rocking for all they were worth and the audience was right behind them. The camera picked up a stark naked man dancing and singing like a crazed loon which was flashed up on to the screens. The atmosphere changed to one of hilarity in a heartbeat as thousands of people stopped concentrating on the band and tried to find the dancing loon in the audience. You had to feel for poor Caleb and the boys.