Kings of Leon conquer Target Center (and illness)

By Chris Riemenschneider

"It's the time of the year everybody starts getting sick," Caleb Followill told the crowd a few songs into Kings of Leon's 90-minute Target Center set Monday, right after blowing into a Kleenex.

As if the Tennessee boys didn't have enough to deal with going from clubs to arenas as quickly as they did, illness was another hurdle to leap over. But they cleared that one, too. Followill's voice sounded fine, and the rest of the band -- on tour nonstop since playing the Orpheum last fall -- steamrolled through the show without a hitch.

Caleb even seemed to be in good spirits despite his illness. You could apparently credit Brett Favre for some of that. He talked about going to "a football game" yesterday that he said was one of the best of his life. He also said the band found out it had its first No. 1 song on the U.S. chart that day (not sure which chart he was referring to... "Use Somebody" is currently No. 9 on Billboard's Hot 100).

Click here for the full review of the concert. Some of the other highlights I didn't mention were "King of the Rodeo" (which proved early on the crowd wasn't just going to sing along to stuff off the new album) and "Knocked Up" (especially a fun/weird one to hear in an arena). I was a little disappointed they didn't also do the seedy opus "Trani" having heard it toward the end of every show going back to the Fine Line, but that might've been the one concession to the ailing frontman. Here's what all the Kings did play:

Crawl  /  Charmer  /  Be Somebody  /  King of the Rodeo  /  Taper Jean Girl  /  Molly's Chambers  /  Fans  /  Revelry  /  I Want You  /  Four Kicks  /  The Bucket  /  Notion  /  Manhattan  /  On Call  /  Cold Desert  /  Slow Night, So Long       ENCORE:  Knocked Up  /  Use Somebody  /  Black Thumbnail