The Four Kings of Indie Rock Double Down on Two Nights at the Casino and Pack a Full House for a Royal Flush of a Show – Photos and Review of the Kings of Leon Concert at the Hard Rock Live at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, FL 

Anyone who has driven on the Turnpike in the past 7 years has seen the famous guitar-shaped Hard Rock Hotel and Casino pierce the skyline with 450 feet of steel and glass, often displaying dazzling light-shows on its LED covered sides. This Friday, however, fans were drawn to the glowing structure for a completely different reason: the first of two sold-out nights with indie-rock legends Kings of Leon. Inside the state-of-the-art Hard Rock Live theater, located in the middle of the casino floor, the atmosphere was thick with anticipation and the cool relief of air conditioning as the crowd funneled into the venue. By the time opener Hudson Freeman walked off stage, the 7,000-capacity theater was a volcano waiting to explode as the headliners appeared.

When the Followill family finally sauntered onto the stage, they wasted little time on pretense as the crowd went wild. Opening with the scorching riff of “Slow Night, So Long“, fans knew it was going to be anything but a “Slow Night” as the band immediately locked into that greasy, Southern-tinged groove that has become their calling card. The sound inside the Hard Rock Live is famously “acoustically pure,” and on this night, the mix was immaculate; Nathan’s kick drum hit the chest like a second heartbeat while Matthew Followill’s guitar lines sliced cleanly through the room without a hint of muddiness. Caleb Followill, looking remarkably fresh for a band that’s been grinding since the early 2000s, seemed to be in a particularly good mood, letting his signature rasp stretch and curl around the lyrics of deep cuts like “Find Me” and “Manhattan“.

The setlist was a well-calibrated journey through the band’s evolution from shaggy-haired garage punks to arena-rock sovereigns, touching on every album in their repertoire. The audience, a healthy mix of longtime diehards and casual fans who fell in love during the “Only by the Night” era, sang every word of “Molly’s Chambers” back at the stage with a fervor that seemed to catch the band a bit off guard. It was during the monolithic one-two punch of “Use Somebody” and “Supersoaker” however, that the energy in the venue truly felt like it might lift it off its foundation as hundreds of cell phone lights swayed in unison. Jared Followill held down a bassline that felt more like a mood than a melody, anchoring the room while the lights pulsed slow and red across the iconic theater’s ceiling.

Beyond the predictable (yet always satisfying) anthems, the night’s highlight came during the encore – which featured a sprawling take on “Closer“, an extended version of “Knocked Up“, and of course, their most popular song: “Sex on Fire“. As the final notes of their smash hit faded into the night, the show was a welcome reminder that beneath the gloss of their Grammy-winning catalog lies a band still deeply in love with the atmospheric tension of bands like The Velvet Underground. Night one was in the books, but the Kings of Leon flag was planted firmly in the Seminole Hard Rock turf. If you’re holding tickets for night two tonight, bring your voice—you’re going to need it.