The Kooks have shared a live video performance of their 2014 standout track “See Me Now.” The song was originally included on the band’s Listen LP, and the video comes from a 2025 performance at the O2 Arena in London.
The video arrives just in time for the English rock band’s expansive 2026 European tour. With support from Girl in the Year Above, The Kooks will kick things off on Thursday, February 5 with a gig in Luxembourg before traveling to cities like Antwerp, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Milan, and more.
“See Me Now” is one of many sterling singles from Listen, which was released via Virgin EMI and marked the band’s fourth LP. Before the album arrived, the band’s vocalist, Luke Pritchard, spoke with The Independent about their goals for the album. “Reinvention. I just think you have to do it,” he explained. “Smash the mould. Feel alive. You know? I didn’t think we could’ve carried on just doing what we were doing. It was boring.”
Pritchard also spoke about how the songwriting process really kicked off when the band came up with “Around Town,” the project’s first song. “It was like a catalyst,” he explained. “I didn’t know if it was going to be a Kooks [song] or if it was going to be a side thing, because it seemed so different. It was like electric church music. I’d written that before I’d even met Inflo, and then he heard it and said, ‘Okay, we can cross-pollinate here musically.’ Everything stemmed from it.” Inflo, the album’s producer, is also a celebrated songwriter in his own right as the bandleader for the mysterious UK group SAULT.
As for “See Me Now,” it represents some of the most autobiographical songwriting of Pritchard’s career, and also marked the first song he ever released about his father. This push towards honesty was an attempt at living a more authentic life as a man and celebrity. Pritchard explained: “There’s a danger, especially with London and the scene, that you can be doing things for the wrong reasons. I looked around me at what was going on in music. Things that were great weren’t selling; things that were terrible, were. I felt angry at everything instead of trying to make things better by making great music. The lifestyle, the going out, had to stop.”
