Kasabian et The Vaccines

They’re probably one of the most misunderstood, contrary bands in British rock right now, so of course they would also be one of the biggest. In 2014 alone they had a Pyramid Stage headliner slot at Glastonbury Festival , played a sold out show in their hometown of Leicester’s 60’000 capacity Victoria Park, released another number one album and capped it off with a sold out tour taking in five nights at Brixton Academy in London.

Yet that doesn’t mean that everyone, or indeed anyone, truly gets them. Many people peg them as heirs to Oasis’ lad rock crown but the band are far more interesting and uncompromising than that. They’ve always sounded more like a more techno-infused Stone Roses or a more guitar based Prodigy than any other bands who would never have even thought of taking up instruments if it wasn’t for “Definitely Maybe”.

For a band with such a populist touch (a Brit Award, millions of albums sold, headline slots at every major British festival there is) they have never lost their thrillingly weird side that has led to collaborations with everyone from Noel Fielding to Richard Ayoade, through to Gorillaz cohort Dan The Automator.

Truth is though, in lead guitarist, head songwriter and all around main man Sergio Pizzorno, they have a band leader who’s more adept at combining terrace anthem choruses with underground strangeness than any collaborator could possibly be. In Tom Meighan, they have one of the most charismatic, electric frontmen of their age. Their reign at the top will go on and on and on for a very good reason, there’s no one else around quite like them, in the U.K or anywhere else.

The Vaccines are one of those classic examples of pretty much instantaneous success; they formed in 2010, with their links to the UK indie scene already well-established - frontman Justin Young had previously recorded and toured under the name Jay Jay Pistolet, albeit with an altogether more folky sound, whilst guitarist Freddie Cowan is the younger brother of his counterpart in The Horrors, Tom.

By February of 2011, just a couple of early singles were enough to land The Vaccines the prestigious opening slot on the NME Awards Tour that year - previously occupied by the likes of Franz Ferdinand and Coldplay - and by the time they released their debut album, ‘What Did You Expect from The Vaccines?’, they had already built up a sizable fanbase of the back of tracks like ‘Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra)’ and ‘Post Break-Up Sex’. That first album charted at number four in their native UK, and would eventually go on to be the biggest-selling debut of the year on those shores. They wasted little time in following it up; album number two, ‘Come of Age’, was released in September of 2012, after a successful lap of European festivals, and topped the album charts in the UK.