Concerts during the tour often began with political activistKoichi Toyama on a panoramic screen delivering an anarchic speech, ordering the overthrow of a government. The setlist often began with Kala'sopening track "Bamboo Banga." M.I.A. selected programming, beats and videos during her set using a Lemur Input Device on stage, and performed dates with back up singer Cherry, DJs Sinden and Low B, supporting vocalists and backup dancers "The Coconut Twins". On the back screen, disembodied images and film footage of break-dancingstreet kids, strippers, tigers, war, video games, political rhetoric, graphs, globes, laughing women and large concert crowds from her previous shows are played throughout the show. Fans were often invited on stage during the performance of "Bird Flu." M.I.A. has collaborated with CassettePlaya, Ashish and Brian Lichtenberg and as with the Arular Tour she wore some of her own designs on tour. T-shirts such as the "How Many How Many" Tees from the "Boyz" set were sold as tour merchandise at gigs and via her website. "Kala Tour Tees" from her "Kala Tour/Okley Run" line were released in 2008.
Shows
M.I.A.'s date at the House of Blues in Chicago, US was performed with Lupe Fiasco and Emily King, whilst her dates at the Arena of Nîmes in France and at the Fox Theater in the US were performed opening for Björk. Her date at the Verizon Wireless Theatre was performed with Paul Wall. Although reports suggested that M.I.A was booked and subsequently cancelled an appearance at the Glastonbury Festival in 2007, a statement released by M.I.A.'s agents explained "Contrary to printed reports in the Guardian Guide, M.I.A. advised Glastonbury that she was unavailable to perform in late May. We are sorry if fans were led to believe otherwise. M.I.A. looks forward to performing next year.“ More dates were added to her US tour after September 2007 due to high demand. M.I.A. ended 2007 with a mini-tour of venues across the U.K. She and her label XL Recordings made available a tour diary of her late 2007 UK dates in different parts to view on YouTube. Opening acts throughout her tour included The Gray Kid, Rye Rye, Santigold, Holy Fuck, The Cool Kids, Soko, Radioclit, Buraka Som Sistema and Afrikan Boy. Her DJs also often played opening sets before her shows. On her YouTube account, M.I.A. posted a video of her and her tourmates during an encore performance of "Paper Planes" at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia, where she named the tour the "KALA Back 2 P.O.W.A. Tour." The KALA tour ended in December 2007, with will.i.am, Paul Wall, the Beastie Boys, Nick Zinner and Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Pavement's Mark Ibold among attendees. It was followed by M.I.A.'s People vs. Money Tour in 2008.
Set list
M.I.A. did not follow the same setlist at every show, but played combinations of the following songs. "Galang" and "Paper Planes" were variably chosen as the final song she played for the encore depending on the venue. During the Terminal 5 club performance, part of the CMJ Music Marathon, she performed mash ups of New Order's "Blue Monday" with "Jimmy", "10 Dollar" with the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams ", and "Galang" with Lil Mama's "Lip Gloss". It was noted that the latter "served as a reminder of how much the mainstream pop/dance/rap landscape has shifted since M.I.A. first appeared in 2004, and how much certain megahits such as Fergie's "London Bridge" have come to resemble her sound."
