LIVE REVIEW: THE KOOKS AT DREAMLAND, MARGATE (01/08/26)

The Kooks brought 20 years of Inside In / Inside Out to the seaside for a euphoric night of indie nostalgia at Dreamland Margate. There are few places better suited to a celebration of noughties indie than a British seaside town. Throw in a summer evening, the vintage fairground backdrop of Dreamland Margate and several thousand people ready to relive their indie-disco years, and The Kooks' 20th anniversary celebrations for Inside In / Inside Out were always going to feel special.

Before the Brighton band arrived, Girl In The Year Above opened proceedings with the unenviable task of winning over a crowd largely waiting for songs they have known for two decades. The Irish/Cornish newcomers proved themselves more than capable, bringing an emotionally charged, contemporary indie sound to the Scenic Stage and making the most of the early evening sunshine.

Next came Circa Waves, a band perfectly chosen for this particular bill. Their bright, guitar-driven indie rock bridged the gap between generations, warming up an increasingly packed Dreamland with the sort of huge choruses made for outdoor stages. By the time their set reached its final stretch, the atmosphere had shifted firmly from support slot to Saturday-night festival, with ‘T-Shirt Weather’ inevitably providing one of their biggest reactions.

Then came the moment the audience had been waiting for, The Kooks. Opening with ‘Sofa Song’, Luke Pritchard and co. immediately transported Dreamland back to 2006. The jangling guitars sounded gloriously at home beside the Kent coast, while Pritchard appeared to have lost remarkably little of the youthful swagger that made him such a recognisable frontman in the first place.

Twenty years might have passed, but these songs remain deeply embedded in British indie culture. That became increasingly obvious as the band moved through Inside In / Inside Out favourites. ‘Eddie's Gun’ and ‘You Don't Love Me’ were greeted like old friends, while Ooh La demonstrated just how effortlessly The Kooks can still turn thousands of individuals into one enormous choir.

What makes the band's current renaissance particularly interesting, though, is that this isn't simply an audience of thirty and forty-somethings revisiting their youth. Scattered throughout Dreamland were teenagers and twenty-somethings singing every word alongside fans who probably remember buying the album when it first appeared in 2006.

The Kooks have somehow crossed the dangerous gap between nostalgia act and genuinely cross-generational band. Nowhere was that clearer than during ‘She Moves in Her Own Way’. From its opening guitar notes, hands shot into the air and the crowd took ownership of the song. Pritchard barely needed to encourage them. Twenty years after its release, that chorus still possesses the ability to trigger an almost involuntary response, you sing it whether you intended to or not.

There was something wonderfully fitting, too, about hearing Seaside in Margate. A song that has always carried the romantic simplicity of escaping to the coast suddenly had the real thing as its surroundings. Against Dreamland's colourful amusement-park landscape, it became one of those pleasing moments where venue and song align almost too perfectly. Throughout the evening Pritchard remained a restless presence, dancing, strutting and throwing himself into songs with the energy of someone considerably less than two decades removed from his debut record. Alongside him, guitarist Hugh Harris provided the sharper edge, his guitar work cutting through the sweetness of the melodies and reminding everyone that beneath The Kooks' pop instincts has always been a very good guitar band.

For all the anniversary nostalgia, the evening never felt like a museum piece. The Kooks released their seventh album Never/Know in 2025, and their continued success has given these anniversary shows a celebratory rather than retrospective feeling. This is a band acknowledging where they came from without suggesting they intend to stay there.

Still, everyone knew what Dreamland was waiting for. When ‘Naive’ finally arrived, the reaction was enormous. That instantly recognisable opening guitar was enough. Phones went up, arms wrapped around shoulders and thousands of voices drowned out parts of Pritchard's vocals. Some songs become so closely associated with an era that hearing them live stops being simply about the band performing them. Instead, everyone in the audience brings their own memories to the song. For those who grew up during Britain's mid-2000s indie explosion, ‘Naive’ is one of them.

Watching younger fans scream the same lyrics demonstrated why The Kooks' anniversary feels more significant than simple noughties nostalgia. Somehow, the songs have escaped the decade that produced them. Dreamland was the perfect setting for that strange collision of past and present. There was something almost cinematic about thousands of people singing indie anthems beneath the summer sky while the lights and rides of a British amusement park framed the scene.

Twenty years after Inside In / Inside Out turned four Brighton musicians into one of Britain's defining indie bands, The Kooks could easily have settled into comfortable nostalgia. Instead, Margate showed a band still capable of generating the carefree excitement that made people fall in love with them in the first place. The hair might be different in parts of the crowd. The knees may hurt a little more after all that jumping. But when the opening chords of Naïve ring out on a warm summer night, apparently none of that matters. For a couple of glorious hours at the seaside, it could have been 2006 all over again.