Live Recap: 101 WKQX - The NightS We Stole Christmas 2021 - Night 3: Kings of Leon, with support from Dayglow & Almost Monday

Night Number three of 101 WKQX's The Nights We Stole Christmas— Their annual knock it out of the park at the renowned Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, featuring none other than Kings of Leon.

And from the looks of things from the back of the main floor minutes before the Kings hit the stage- a pretty much packed and close to a sellout show.

As well it should for Kings of Leon, with lead singer / guitarist Caleb Followill, along with his brothers, doing a few special shows for the winter season, before heading out early next year for a bigger tour overseas.

Which makes this show at the Aragon that much extra special, with a fine tuned setlist consisting of 18 songs, with all the hits, and then some.
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The Followill brothers have certainly put in the hard work over the past few years, making a name for themselves with strong songwriting and musical chops to back it up, and yet gone through their fair share of hardships, resolved and came out the other end of that much healthier and in fighting spirit, and also found some time to re group during the ongoing pandemic and come out with a strong album back in March of 2021 titled "When You See Yourself".

They played a couple songs from their latest release, opening with the title track "When You See Yourself, Are You Far Away", a moody and slow build up of a song, with a solid plea of refrain from Caleb: "One more night, one more night will you stay here, One more night , one more night will you be safe dear", which, when you think of it, is a plea of sorts, with a melody that tugs at your heart to embrace the trust and also the grief, but also with some question and answer to resolution.

And the lighting for this opener of a song is low key and moody orange, the band highlighted, but barely visible.

Such is the thing with the Followill's and conjuring striking moods again and again - a band built with diversity, a band built for taking risks and following their own path and no one else's.

The rest of their set was concise and spot on- with "The Bucket" into the giant and never gets old "Supersoaker", followed by "Revelry", which of course, the main floor of the Aragon Ballroom was in revelry as well.
Of course the main hit songs were front and center about halfway through their eighteen song setlist, what with "Sex on Fire' making the Aragon go bonkers, along with "Radioactive", and "Pyro" as well.

But they saved their best for last encore wise, with "Use Somebody", an extended jam of punctual melody and awesome vocal from Caleb, before ending and exiting stage left.
Such a fantastical and wonderful and memorable evening with the Kings, making the world a better place for WKQX's TNWSC, and leaving us drained and yet oh so satisfied, especially with what we've all been up against the past year and a half or so.
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Openers Dayglow from Austin Texas, and Almost Monday, a pop trio from San Diego, set forth with lighthearted moods of pleasant ear candy- not as brash as the Kings of Leon, but still entertaining nevertheless- as much as you'd expect with the celebrations as such for The Night We Stole Christmas.

Bobby Talamine - JBTV Music Television Chicago