Ask any New Yorker sweating on the streets about summer in the city and you’ll somehow hear a cheerful and flowery oratory. Despite the gritty heat, the miles walked upon blistering blacktops, and the strange smells emanating from subway grates (and people), certain seasonal afternoons and city perquisites tend to provide prescribed amnesia to such unfavorable conditions. Certain seasonal afternoons like the one I experienced yesterday involving the Kooks, a rooftop full of friendly folks in Flatiron, and a reservoir of cold beer, proved to be the exact prescription I needed. Cheerful and flowery oratory to follow:

It takes either serious swagger or buckets of talent to riff your album's name off of the Kinks, without being laughed out of the room. Luckily for the Kooks, it’s the latter. The British pop band's latest album, Konk, was named after the studio in which it was recorded, which just happens to be where the Kinks originally laid down tracks. Thus, we went to Terminal 5 last night with high expectations. And the Kooks, suprisingly, having just come from a private rooftop performance at the EMI Building, exceeded them by providing an altogether electric performance. Lead singer and guitarist, Luke Pritchard, commanded the stage with a humble elegance, as though unaware of the several indie-beauties gawking at his altar. Take a look after the jump.

The Kooks, Terra Blues, on Bleecker Street, New York City.

"Naïve” was the Kooks’ first hit in their native England; aptly, mop-topped frontman Luke Pritchard was supposedly only 16 years old when he wrote it. Since then, however, fame has taught them a thing or two. The Kooks, along with Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs, ushered in a new wave of barely legal Britpop: the Kooks’ debut, Inside In/Inside Out, was one of the U.K.’s best-selling albums of 2006, when the oldest member was but 21. Despite their youth, the band—Pritchard, guitarist Hugh Harris, bassist Max Rafferty, and drummer Paul Garred—prove wizened souls down to their name, filched from a David Bowie song old enough to be their father. “I’ve got all these old vinyls,” Garred explains, flipping through his stash of Funkadelic, Hendrix, and Buddy Holly.