Can't resist the cheese
By
David Smyth
20 Mar 2008
One great thing about being unfashionable is you’ll never go out of style. Soft rockers The Feeling have become great successes thanks to their willingness to “embrace the cheese”, selling a million copies of their debut album and scoring a number one with the follow-up, Join With Us.
Their efforts here extended to flashy frontman Dan Gillespie Sells singing into a rainbow diamanté microphone, vibrant covers of both Together In Electric Dreams and Video Killed The Radio Star, and use of a silver piano that seemed to have a built-in glitterball. A finale involving marching through the crowd banging drums may have been swiped from hipster favourites Arcade Fire, but otherwise it was thoroughly enjoyable fromage throughout.
Sells was watchably hyperactive, high-kicking the cymbals and working the crowd so effectively that he even got his grannie to her feet on the balcony during a climactic Love It When You Call. New songs such as I Thought It Was Over and Turn It Up maintained the high catchiness quota, and Join With Us even got away with lifting the “Beep beep” segment from the Beatles’ Drive My Car.
The odd harder rock moment, as on Spare Me, didn’t quite suit them, and the sleazy riffing of Don’t Make Me Sad was overlong. But mostly this joyful band offered pleasures not worth feeling guilty about.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Afternoon:
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