Gig review: Miles Kane at O2 Academy Leeds

“Leeds, good evening!” Miles Kane hollers, barely audible over the din of his guitar as a wall of warped sound crashes through the speakers. His audience, squeezed up between the front barrier and the makeshift mixing station, responds accordingly with a cheer as he and his three-piece band dive into the angular new wave chords of Better Than That with gusto.

The weather beyond the city’s O2 Academy is a blustery affair; within its walls, there’s enough wall-of-sound velocity to rival the wind outside.

A decade-and-a-half since he dissolved The Rascals to go it on his own, Kane has – perhaps unfairly – become readily associated in some quarters for his collaborative efforts as much as his solo career.

His biggest hits remain with Alex Turner in The Last Shadow Puppets, and his cameo role as an infrequent Arctic Monkeys sideman only underlines their relationship.

Throw in covers supergroup The Jaded Hearts Club with Blur’s Graham Coxon and Muse’s Matt Bellamy, plus appearances alongside Lana Del Rey and Imelda May, and it’s easy to see why his own work sometimes flies under the radar.

Those that have braved the after effects of Storm Jocelyn on a cold January night for this tour opener are not here for his extracurricular exploits. There’s an unexpectedly lusty timbre to their response, one that seems to surprise Kane himself as much as it thrills him.

Last year’s fifth solo record One Man Band represented his highest-charting effort to date, and the way several of its songs already have taken root leave him whooping with delight.

There are drawbacks to the blistering approach favoured on stage, the pace with which songs are attacked threatening to iron out the vintage soul-pop textures that underpin his best work. But Kane is a savvy enough operator and performer to understand that kinetic power and punk speed offer primal thrills in their own way.

Inhaler and Rearrange prompt arms-aloft singalongs; Colour of the Trap, as one of the few slower cuts, unfurls with muscular aplomb; fan favourite Telepathy gets a first outing in five years.

It ends with the spring of Coup de Grace and Don’t Forget Who You Are; for a show that runs just over an hour, it feels like Kane is barely getting started.

“This means the world to me,” he intones before an impromptu encore of Troubled Son. Sweat-dripping and smiling, you certainly feel it does.