Things do not look promising at 8.55 PM. Half the 1500-capacity Engine Shed is curtained off. The venue is still far from full. The crowd is mostly between their 30s and their 50s, lots of couples. The lights are on. The vibe is lacklustre. Mumbled chat and pints. It’s ex-Kasabian frontman Tom Meighan’s acoustic RAW show and it doesn’t seem likely he’ll be able to turn this around. But, within ten minutes of hitting the stage, he most certainly has.
Guitarist Chris Haddon, appears first, then Meighan, a wiry, bewhiskered figure in black, cropped hair, a padlock on a chunky chain around his neck, his upper half clad in a Burberry hoodie. The pair kick off with Kasabian’s “Fast Fuse”, a tune that preceded 2009’s West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum album, and which, he tells us, he hasn’t sung for 13 years. Haddon has an electronic drum he plays via a foot pedal.
Meighan exudes a wild, contagious energy, facial intensity combined with lithe commitment to physical gesture. By the second song, he has the crowd singing “Days Are Forgotten”. There are cries of “You’re the man” and “They’re a shite without you,” the latter referring, of course, to his old band, who continue to record and tour.
The hour-long set contains only two Meighan solo songs. One is the pumping, if generic rocker “Movin’ On”, but the other, 2025 single “Better Life”, is heartfelt and anthemic, in line with Noel Gallagher’s aptitude, in Oasis’s best-loved numbers, for capturing a commonality, the feeling of self-in-the-world.
By halfway though the evening, it seems every person in the place is singing, with Meighan as choirmaster. He calls “Stevie” “the best song on [Kasabian album] 48:13 by a fucking mile,” and proves the point by making the chorus a group bellow – “All the kids they say/Live to fight another day/Live to fight again” – while Haddon laces it with tasty Spanish guitar. And “L.S.F. (Lost Souls Forever)” is something else.
That he manages to have the crowd so vocally onside so quickly is a feat. I’d doubted these songs, originally bullish, electro-rock festival smashers, could be done acoustically but, at Meighan’s behest, they mutate into rowdy punk-folk community sing-alongs. The downside is that he’s playing much too large a venue. This does the night no favours.
As it is, he breaks the crowd down for his “L.S.F.” chorale, first geographically, genially mocking the lone voices from Sleaford, then by girls and “gorillas”. He has the room swaying and singing as one.
This review can’t continue without mentioning the elephant in the room. In 2020 Meighan was convicted of assaulting his fiancée in a drunken episode during COVID lockdown. The couple have since married (she’s here tonight). Meighan went to rehab and has been sober since. He has repeatedly apologised, never made any excuse, only ever expressed disgust at his actions, spoken out candidly about the suicidal hole he fell into via alcoholism and drugs, pointing others towards support systems. He was booted out of Kasabian and cancelled, all of which he accepted as his due. His topline rock’n’roll career was over.
But it’s now six years later. He has long ago been forgiven by his wife and her family. It’s reasonable to suggest he’s paid his price, done his time, and that this dire incident need not completely dominate the rest of his life.
Back in the room, the 300-strong crowd certainly think so. Meighan is now in his element, feeding off the energy he’s whipped up. He gives us “Goodbye Kiss” before telling us an anecdote about recording Kasabian’s 2006 Top 10 hit “Empire” at Rockfield Studios, hanging out with The Prodigy’s Keith Flint, who was bigging up the new track, everyone “racking up lines and falling on the floor”. Then he delivers the song, its glam stomp replaced by massed clapping.
He is an idiosyncratic personality, repeatedly wishing us "Happy New Year", despite it being almost March, thanking us for coming out on a wet Wednesday (it’s Thursday), and referring to the venue as “the Thomas the Tank Engine Shed” but, while grizzled by life, he has charisma to spare and closes with the effective double-header of Kasabian’s debut hit “Club Foot”, then their biggest hit, the terrace anthem “Fire”, before thanking a cheering crowd profusely and swiftly exiting.
Kasabian’s guitarist, Serge Pizzorno, now fronts the band. They are a quarter of the band they were. He has made the mistake of thinking that because he writes the songs (and is a looker), he can present the show. But, whether he likes it or not, every Townshend needs a Daltrey, and Tom Meighan took Kasabian’s stage presence, its vital zing, with him. Who knows where he will go next…
Below: Watch the video for "Better Life" by Tim Meighan
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