THE FOREST Live gigs at Westonbirt Arboretum are something that West Country audiences look forward to every summer – and this year was no exception.

Abandoning the previous format of two sets of three live gigs, the Forestry Commission this year announced just four gigs, to be performed over four consecutive nights.

The Kaiser Chiefs were the second headliners to take to the Westonbirt stage, hot on the heels of Thursday nights main act, Rudimental.

Friday’s weather was not looking promising, but luckily the rain clouds cleared in time for support acts Vitamin and Spring King, who warmed the crowd up nicely for Ricky Wilson and the boys who took to the stage at 9pm.

The first song was a brave choice: Stay Together is the title track to their forthcoming sixth studio album and it seemed to leave even the die hard fans at the front of the stage a little non-plussed.

But the Westonbirt crowd is always a tough to crack, as many of those attending are there for a summer picnic as much as the live music and this just meant that Ricky had to work hard to keep the momentum up.

Every Day I Love You Less and Less, from their first album Employment, was the third song played and a much more crowd-pleaseing track. If you can sing along it really does make all the difference at a huge open air gig like this one.

And so it was that the Kaisers’ most well known tunes brought the best reactions from the crowd - Modern Way and I Predict A Riot being a particular favourite with the welly wearers.

Ricky didn’t let up – he couldn’t afford to! – and his amazing energy lifted even the most reticent of gig-goers: Never miss a Beat, Everything Is Average, the new single Parachute, The Angry Mob and, of course, their only number one single Ruby were all perfectly performed as the sun went down over the famous Gloucestershire forest and a cannon fired golden glitter across the crowd to mark the end of another great Forest Live show.

An encore mash up of Misery Company, Oh My God and Na Na Na Na Naaaa made sure that everyone enjoyed another epic gig right till the very end.