Built To Spill

Not so long ago, Kings of Leon and Built to Spill inhabited the same college radio territory, with Kings of Leon the plucky up-and-comers and Built to Spill the wily veterans. We all know what happened next — the youngsters got haircuts and became international megastars, and the senior band...

By Albert Ching

July 8, 2010

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Not so long ago, Kings of Leon and Built to Spill inhabited the same college radio territory, with Kings of Leon the plucky up-and-comers and Built to Spill the wily veterans. We all know what happened next — the youngsters got haircuts and became international megastars, and the senior band remained in pretty much the same circles, netting further critical acclaim but still far from household names. So is it sort of weird, then, that Built to Spill are opening for Kings of Leon on this current amphitheater tour? Maybe slightly, but it's also pretty cool that whomever put together the tour added a cult favorite approaching middle age than whatever flavor-of-the-month they could have tagged on (Kings of Leon and 3OH!3, the double bill straight out of your FM nightmares!). Built to Spill have plenty to be proud of, from the warm reception to their most recent full-length, last year's There Is No Enemy, to their 2008 tour where they did the "band plays one of their big albums in full" thing (in this case, 1997's Perfect from Now On). Kings of Leon continue to pay it forward with the third band on the bill: The Features, another Tennessee act that looked poised to break out around the same time as KoL but didn't.

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