The Feeling were playing at a charity gig called Ha Ha Hammersmith, which as you might guess from the title was predominantly a comedy gig, raising money to support the community outreach programme at The Lyric theatre. Janet Ellis, ex-Blue Peter presenter and mother-in-law to The Feeling’s base player, arranged the night explaining TF’s participation to close the night.
Key learning of the night – you can get away with sitting in the third row of a comedy gig as long as:
1) The lighting is quite low
2) There is someone much more interesting sitting in front of you
3) You don’t heckle
4) You’re not a bloke
Luckily all of the above were true so I didn’t have any problems – I can’t say the same of some of the people around me. Overall the comedians were pretty darn good and the couple of people who tried to heckle didn’t stand a chance. Highlights of the evening were probably Lee Mack, who was given a great gift by one of the hecklers and ran with it, a guy whose name I must look up who did a hilarious set featuring flip charts and jigsaws (it was funnier than it sounds) and my friend Alec’s 12 year old son Jack who built up a strong rapport with Richard Herring who was comparing the evening (man I used to love Fist of Fun – anyone else remember that??).
To close the first half of the show was an unexpected bonus in the form of String Fever, a male electro-string quartet version of The Corrs who performed quite brilliant items including the history of music in 5 minutes that you can watch here. I would really try and catch them if they play anywhere near you, they were pretty amazing musicians and funny to boot.
Anyway, The Feeling came on at the end of the show when proceedings were already running late and we as brilliant as usual. They played a selection of hits from their first album, including Sewn, Fill My Little World, I Love It When You Call and Never Be Lonely (including the mandatory audience singalong). Apparently they had only been planning to do 2 songs but ran to 6 in the end, including a genius version of Nobody Does It Better that you can see here, which was a fantastic way to end the evening.
As I am now contractually bound to say, The Feeling are really good live and everyone in the country (hell, in the world) should be encouraged to see them play in the flesh – if you don’t like them then that’s fair enough but my guess is that you will. They are fantastic musicians, especially when you consider that they haven’t performed together as a band for 6 months and I have a sneaky suspicion that they didn’t practice much beforehand. And they have great stage presence and interaction with the audience – they really looked like they were enjoying themselves and this was the first gig that I’ve been to where I really felt that the encore was a result of the enthusiastic reception. The thing that always impresses me most about TF is their vocal harmonies which are always spot on – that and the fact that I find it impossible not to dance when they are playing (apologies to the people sitting behind me!!). It’s also worth saying that it would be hard to find a nicer group of guys who always make loads of time for their fans.
I don’t really understand why their second album didn’t take off in the same one as their first one – 2006 the band were the most played on UK radio and they won an Ivor Novello award for songwriting, while although Join With Us got to number 1 when it was released in 2008 none of the singles really captured public opinion in the same way as the songs from Twelve Stops and Home. For my money JWU needed a few more listens to get into, it is nearly as good as their debut and has some classic songs of it’s own (I Thought It Was Over is my favourite TF track) – maybe the promo wasn’t quite right, or it wasn’t what the industry wanted – they certainly struggled for radio play. And then again, maybe it was down to the appetite of new music that seems to be insatiable at the moment. Other great bands including The Fratellis and The Kooks really struggled with their second albums last year.
Oops, I seem to have strayed away from a gig review into a random rant. So what else can I say?? Hurry up with the third album please boys – looking forward to the next tour :-)
The Feeling are Really Good Live and are currently recording their third album
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