“It’s been quite a few years now, Brooklyn, yeah?”

After cancelling their stop in New York during the first leg of their Best Of… So Far Tour, The Kooks returned to Brooklyn for their first time in nearly three years (their last appearance was on their Listen Tour, a spring stretch of shows in promotion of the tour’s namesake 2014 album release). At the newly-renovated industrial venue, Brooklyn’s Brooklyn Steel, stop two of a sprawling North American tour that kicked off in Boston on May 21 ahead of an “intimate, extremely sweaty” UK club tour, The Kooks were chomping at the bit to get on their tour flow.

As part of a very Britpop evening, Ireland’s resident rock and roll boy band The Academic had previously warmed up the crowd with a handful of songs off their debut studio album, Tales from the Backseat, which came out earlier this year. Highlighting their UK-ness clad in rugby jerseys and matching pompadours, the very Irish lead singer and rhythm guitarist Craig Fitzgerald channeled his inner Paul McCartney, head-bopping and leg tapping in true early Beatles touring style.

Shortly after and a drum kit switch later, The Kooks walked out to a static-y compilation of their favorites-of-all-time tracks, finally taking the stage to The Clash’s hit, “Rock The Casbah,” before launching into fan-favorite track “Eddie’s Gun.” If The Academic’s lead singer was attempting his best McCartney, then Kooks frontman Luke Pritchard was tapping into his inner Jagger. Pritchard came out in a loose, unbuttoned short-sleeved button down tucked into wax-coated black jeans, his trademark curled mop of hair perfectly tousled. By song two, Inside In/ Inside Out’s “Sofa Song,” the eccentric singer had already momentarily abandoned one of his three guitars of the night to scuttle and scamper around the stage, shaking his hips and frantically-yet-casually waving his hands in what can only be seen as an (un)intentional homage to the Rolling Stones’ souped-up frontman.

Armed with a new and improved sound courtesy of their upcoming album let’s go sunshine, the band had a noticeably more cohesive and polished stage presence than in their past tours—granted, the last time I saw them perform was their first time touring after releasing the album that put them on the map in the first place, Inside In/ Inside Out). Living up to the tours name, the band continued to rock out with “Be Who You Are” and “Bad Habit,” before switching to their acoustic guitars and slowing it down a bit with “Ooh La,” “She Moves in Her Own Way,” “All The Time,” and “Westside,” before picking it back up again with “You Don’t Love Me.” And judging by the amplitude of screams and whoops thereafter, the crowd most definitely agreed.

As a bit of a mid-show palate cleanser, Pritchard dragged out a keyboard to play a soulfully slowed and stripped down version of the ballad “See Me Now”—dedicated to a special secret someone in New York—by his lonesome. The rest of the band returned for Konk hit “Sway,” shortly followed by an electric “Do You Wanna.” The Kook’s then dipped into the funky end of their catalogue with “Down,” filled with cowlicking riffs and an extra helping of Pritchard’s bravado ahead of moving into crowd pleasers “Is It Me” and “Around Town.”

“Feel free to grab someone and give a squeeze, have a boogie” Pritchard drawled, prefacing the first of two tracks released from let’s go sunshine, the nostalgic and feel-good “No Pressure,” to which the crowd was singing along for around thirty seconds after song’s end at Pritchard’s cue before the band sprang into a finale version of “Junk of the Heart (Happy)” off their third album.

But The Kooks’ business was clearly not finished with their official setlist—after all, they skipped out on probably the most quintessential and recognizable Kook’s hit, yet again off Inside In/Inside Out, “Naïve.” After nearly five minutes off crowd begging and cheers for “six more songs,” the band sauntered out, Pritchard enthusiastically dabbing and pointing out at the crowd. The three-part encore commenced with acoustic love-anthem “Seaside,” closely followed by a charged-up “Always Where.” Before getting kicked out, The Kooks finished with “the one song we have left to sing,” and the song everyone hiked out to Williamsburg to see, the all-satisfying “Naïve.”

As the four Kooks—original members Pritchard and guitarist Hugh Harris, plus bassist Peter Denton and relatively-new drummer Alexis Nunez—embraced each other and grabbed shoulders to give a final bow, it was clear that both the band and crowd alike were elated with how the show went. In the words of notoriously shy guitarist Hugh Harris, who interrupted Pritchard mid-show to softly declare, “I just want to say that I think tonight is going quite well.” The throngs of screaming girls and dancing fans unanimously agreed.