Kasabian are a band at whom critics like to take potshots. Yet while Serge Pizzorno and vocalist Tom Meighan remain neither the sonic alchemists nor everyman poets they fancy themselves to be, they do approach things with an undeniable swagger.
Current single eez-eh evidences less the "new musical language" Pizzorno claims, with trademark humility, to have discovered on new album 48:13, than an unintentional rephrasing of the sound of the risible Audio Bullys, complete with lyrics about "being watched by Google". But there's an admirably unburdened quality about its fusion of disco beats and goony half-rapping, and it provides a clubby, cartoonish contrast to the pulverising electro-rock rump of their set. The football-terrace chant of "easy, easy, easy!", which Pizzorno subsequently instigates, frames a natural common touch that will next month make Kasabian Glastonbury headliners.
Packing a stage and light-show tooled ultimately not for these small-town venues they're touring as a warm-up, but vast festival fields, they stretch Kilmarnock's Grand Hall at the seams tonight. The title of their new record looms large in neon pink digits as a backdrop, like ravey mystic runes. The mariachi trumpet intro to Take Aim is performed by a horns player obscured behind a speaker stack. A run of Club Foot, Re-Wired, Empire and Fire incites floor-shaking bedlam verging on the hysterical. During the encore break, one young fan puts hearts in mouths by toeing along the balcony ledge then launching himself headfirst into the outstretched arms of the mosh pit below, to bloodthirsty roars of approval from his peers.
It's a sense of invincibility that Kasabian's music instils in all who worship them. Switchblade Smiles, Vlad the Impaler and, lastly, the gratuitously swaggering L.S.F., as preceded by a snippet of Fatboy Slim's Praise You, leave an audience to exit walking 10 feet taller than when they entered. There's much to sneer at about Kasabian, but you have to see past their many forceful qualities first.
At Alhambra theatre, Dunfermline, 22 May. Box office: 01383 740 384. Then touring.
