Kings Of Leon BST Hyde Park review: Tennessee band rock out the capital greenspace with sold out show

Wrapping up BST Hyde Park 2024’s first weekend of music, the famous London greenspace was well and truly jam packed with Kings Of Leon fans.

On the day, one of the festival’s vendors told me over 60,000 fans had flocked to the spot for the band’s headline day and you could really tell when swerving through crowds around the event’s site. 

While Kings Of Leon fall well outside my typical pop realm, of course I’ve heard their smash hits Sex On Fire and Use Somebody (who hasn’t) and was excited to hear the two live.

The band - made up of brothers Caleb, Nathan, and Jared Followill and their cousin Matthew Followill - are currently on their Can We Please Have Fun World tour which will see the band perform a number of shows across Europe as well as the states. 

For their Hyde Park show The Vaccines and Paulo Nutini were some of the acts that warmed up London crowds before the US rockers took to BST’s iconic Great Oak Stage.

Join our new WhatsApp Community to get the latest news from across London directly to your phone.

Arriving on stage slightly earlier than expected, I managed to miss Kings Of Leon’s opening track of Ballerina Radio but soon hurried along so I didn’t miss any more of the action.

Just as I joined the crowd the band began to play the lead single from their third album, Because of the Times, On Call. The Bucket, Taper Jean Girl and Manhattan followed with arguably the band’s most popular song, Sex On Fire, placing surprising early on in their set.

The crowd of course erupted in cheers after they recognised the tune's iconic first few chords with the band also quieting down in the chorus to allow the audience to belt out every lyric.

They continued to dip into their rich back catalogue including performances of Pyro and Molly’s Chambers as well as some of their more recent releases including Mustang and Seen. 

It was at this point when the band went off stage leaving the crowd to think their set was over but really it was far from it as they returned for four more songs.

While I had thought Sex On Fire could have been the closer of Kings Of Leon’s set, that spot was saved for another fan favourite and crowd pleaser Use Somebody which the band didn't even need to sing as fans belted it out word for word.

The song still fresh in fans' minds, they continued to sing the tune while filtering out of the festival site proving just how perfect the song was of a closer.

Full set list for Kings Of Leon at BST Hyde Park

(As recorded by Setlist.fm)

• Ballerina Radio
• On Call
• The Bucket
• Taper Jean Girl
• Manhattan
• Revelry
• Nothing to Do
• My Party
• Sex on Fire
• Don’t Stop the Bleeding
• Comeback Story
• Pyro
• Mustang
• Molly's Chambers
• Milk
• Fans
• Back Down South
• Nowhere to Run
• King of the Rodeo
• Wait for Me
• Split Screen
• The Bandit
• Find Me
• Closer
• Seen

Encore:

• Rainbow Ball
• Waste a Moment
• Cold Desert
• Use Somebody