CINCINNATI — There's something bittersweet about watching something you thought of as a secret leaking out into the real world. Nashville's Kings of Leon haven't been a secret for a long time. The three brawling, skirt-chasing brothers and their guitarist cousin have been making marble-mouthed, sex-drenched arena rock for way longer than they've actually been playing arenas.
Well, in the U.S., anyway. European audiences, and specifically British audiences, long ago fell for the quartet's uniquely sleazy/sexy allure, and they've been playing major venues and huge festivals overseas for years.
But now, thanks to a hit single with the provocative "Sex on Fire" (a song my wife refers to as "the more obvious" version of the bleary-eyed erotic poetry found in an earlier song, "Soft"), Kings of Leon are playing their first arena tour on these shores. The show rolled into the PNC Pavilion on Monday night — for the first sellout in the 4,100-seat venue's one-year history — and while the preacher's kids put on a hard-driving, sweaty, 80-minute Southern-rock clinic, for me, something had changed.
I'd seen the Kings play the local rock club Bogart's (capacity: around 1,400) less than a year ago and once before that on a pervious tour. I'd seen them play at Lollapalooza and I'd seen them at an even smaller club in Texas years ago when they released their debut EP. Each time, the Followils brought their patented mix of classic-rock grit, mixed with some grandiose arena riffs and a palpable sense of danger that plays out not only in the seedy underbelly of their groupie-rock lyrics, but in the their loose-limbed, confident stage postures. These are boys who know exactly how they are making the ladies feel ... and make no mistake, you will see more ladies at a KOL show than just about any other rock gig on the planet.
That swagger was still there, as was the ambitious combination of U2-like guitar-rock grandeur, punk force and fuzzed-out blooze distortion on songs like the show-openers "Crawl, "Taper Jean Girl" and "Molly's Chambers." They sounded great, and the arena-ready light show helped make new hits like "Use Somebody" sound like 20-year-old classic-rock radio staples I've known my whole life.
But as close as my seats were to the band, I felt a bit further away than before. Looking around at the crowd — many of whom looked like pneumatic, microskirted rejects from the "Rock of Love Bus," accompanied by their sunglasses-at-night, orange-hued weightlifter boyfriends — I felt like our secret had gotten out. The Kings belong to the world now. I'm glad for them, because they deserve it, and rock needs a savior right about now.
But as with so many bands before them, a part of me selfishly wished I'd been able to hold on to that first rush of excitement a little bit longer.