The sellout NME Awards tour was the hottest ticket in town on Saturday night, with the Guildhall tightly packed with eager fans all itching for the big event to start.

Being first up on a tour like this must be pretty daunting, but Leeds five-piece Kaiser Chiefs seemed to take it all in their stride and got the rock n' roll ball well and truly rolling.

The Kaiser Chiefs

They go for the smart look - all wearing shirts and stripey ties, with their instantly recognisable pie hatted keyboard player Nick and explosive frontman Ricky sporting a natty striped blazer they cut a great look on stage.

Ricky had that edgy, unpredictable vibe about him as he ricocheted across the stage, swinging his mic and banging a cowbell.

Their manic version of the Clash edged I Predict A Riot was a floor shaker and new single Oh My God was certainly a tune and a half and got us well and truly warmed up.

Next up were Bloc Party, the rock/punk outfit have had the world and his dog talking about them recently, so the pressure was on for the London foursome to live up to expectations.

Bloc Party

With their angular guitars and sharp drums they sound like Franz Ferdinand and The Cure's lovechildren, singing songs about love, sex and boredom.

For me the overall Bloc Party experience was on the repetitive side with several of their songs riding along similar drum beats and guitar riffs.

Their latest single and final song - the melodic, beautiful So Here We Are made the crowd go totally nuts, dancing dementedly as soon as the opening chords rang out.

Announcing that 'the party was over' the night's show stealers The Futureheads arrived on stage with a bunch of balloons bobbing about from Dave's drumkit and launched into their off-kilter, deranged set.

With their twitchy Fugazi meets the Jam sound, the wirey Sunderland four-piece brought a sprinkle of strangeness to our ears with punchy, sharp vocals from white leather loafered frontman Barry combined with harmonies from the rest of the band.

The Futureheads

A couple of songs in, the reason for the balloons became clear as Bloc Party and Kaiser Chiefs joined the band on stage after a couple of songs to sing a Happy 20th Birthday to drummer Dave who's Barry's younger brother.

You wouldn't imagine that a band compared to Fugazi would be danceable and have singalong choruses but it all works perfectly.

Their cover of Kate Bush's Hounds of Love with it's 'Er... er...oh...oh's' goes down a storm - they even got a topless, cartwheeling female streaker half way though their set!

With feet throbbing, ears singing and sweat/lager dripping from us we waited for the tour's glitzy headliners, Las Vegas rockers The Killers.

Backed by a spangly 'Killers' in lights, with pinstriped suited and booted flamboyant frontman Brandon Flowers manning his mirrored keyboards they launched into Mr. Brightside.

The Killers

Their disco/rock vibe with an 80's electronica/Duran Duran feel takes them a long way off their Nevada roots and gives them a very British sound - judging by the manic response from the crowd they definitely seem to have cracked something.

There was plenty of pogoing, and bumping and grinding going on as we sang along through their set from Somebody Told me, Believe Me Natalie and Midnight Show - before they wound up with Glamorous Indie Rock n' Roll which morphed into Pink Floyd's Time.

'Is there room for one more song?' Of course there was! And sure enough, it was what we'd all been waiting for - and the crowd lapped it up once again as they finished off with All These Things That I've Done.

With that, we headed home with T-shirts clinging, huge grins on our faces and I've got Soul But I'm Not A Solider on everyone's lips.

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