EartH, LondonBy channelling the charisma of hip-hop, house and rock opera, Serge Pizzorno earns the solo spotlight
Some men, as middle age heaves into view, buy motorcycles and zip around the countryside pretending to be Peter Fonda. Others allow greetings at the school-gate to turn into a furtive affair. For Serge Pizzorno of Kasabian, the looming 40s have brought the desire to shed the skin of the rock guitarist and become a hip-hop star. The rapping part isn’t as important, though, as being able to swagger across the stage in a white vest and thick chains, knees bent, arms straight, and Pizzorno does a lot of that.
He also puts on a suit and appears behind a presidential-style podium for Meanwhile … at the Welcome Break, suggesting that the part of him that doesn’t want to be Tupac quite fancies being Pete Townshend and knocking out the odd rock opera. It’s tremendous fun in a faintly ridiculous way, not least because, whether or not he’s having a midlife crisis, he knows how to knock out a tune, and also because the presentation – at one point Stephen Graham appears on a screen fronting a faux shopping channel video – is more ambitious than one normally gets in midsize venues.