The Feeling @ Shepherds Bush Empire, London

The Feeling at O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire Review

0/5
Bands: The Feeling
Venue: O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire
Gig: The Feeling @ Shepherds Bush Empire, London
Gig date: 20th March 2008
Posted on 24th March 2008 by bigcheese

Everything was running smoothly as the Feeling reached the end of a triumphant British tour to celebrate the chart-topping success of their second album, Join With Us. “It’s good to be back home,” said the singer, Dan Gillespie Sells, who resisted the temptation to tell us we were the best crowd in the world but did reveal that the Empire was his favourite venue. “Who would imagine that a bunch of geeks like us would end up with a No 1 record?” he asked, without a trace of surprise or humility. Frankly, faced with a team of young pop professionals as slick as this lot, it would be more difficult to imagine them not reaching the top – for a while, at any rate. Sells, who has the artfully nurtured poise that is the hallmark of graduates from the Brit school for the performing arts, is one of those educated, all-round musicians who never loses sight of his role, first and foremost, as an entertainer. There were echoes of Mika and a budget-priced Freddie Mercury in his performance, particularly when he sang his solo set-piece, Strange, while banging away at a mirror-panelled upright piano. The rest of the band, in their uniform of white shirts, dark trousers and floppy haircuts, played and sang their elaborate harmony vocal parts with an equally impressive skill, and about as much soul as you would expect to find in a window of shop mannequins. The stage was a vision of disco hell, all neon strip lights, glitter balls and a big plastic sign reminding us of the band’s name, while the audience was full of excited preteens and their parents, the sort of crowd that you would be more likely to come across at the screening of a family-friendly film than at a gig. Beginning with the pneumatic disco beat of I Thought It Was Over, they bounced through a succession of three-minute pop songs – Won’t Go Away, Never Be Lonely, Spare Me – that recalled the epic pretensions of such bands as 10cc and the Beach Boys but failed to scale the same dramatic peaks. A version of the Human League’s Electric Dream was the cue for the strip lighting to go mad, while two dancing girls arrived for Don’t Make Me Sad, a modern pop update on the traditions of music hall burlesque. An efficient encore of the Buggles’ standard Video Killed the Radio Star prompted one to wonder what it might take to kill off bands like the Feeling. There is no sign of it happening any time soon. David Sinclair

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The Feeling @ Shepherds Bush Empire, London | livemusic.fm

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