Marcel Winatschek

At Least The Kooks

Going to a Coca-Cola event to see The Kooks for free seemed like a decent idea at the time. What I didn’t account for was the six hours of opening acts designed to test my patience. Bands that sounded like they’d learned everything they knew from a village wedding in Bavaria and thought that was good enough. The genuine low point was last year’s MySpace-voted winner, who simply refused to leave the stage. I’ve never been more angry at people for not knowing when to quit.

But there was one legitimately good German punk band somewhere in that lineup. Andioliphilipp or something close—the flyer was already falling apart. They had actual energy, actual songs that didn’t make you regret showing up. Whatever came next for them, they’d earned it.

The Kooks got the thankless job of closing out this objectively terrible event. But they actually pulled it off. Naïve, She Moves in Her Own Way—those songs just worked. Two tracks and suddenly the whole night made sense. They saved the entire thing.

Next time Coca-Cola decides to throw something like this, maybe think about the lineup. Or don’t. Either way, I’m glad The Kooks showed up when they did.