Feeder
After a four year self-imposed hiatus Feeder are back with a new album, All Bright Electric, and a 16 date tour that includes sold out shows in London, Manchester and Cardiff. They are old friends of Norwich, having played the UEA's Waterfront and LCR no less than 10 times since 1997. However when I last saw them, headlining the much-missed PlayFest at Quidenham in 2012, they looked tired and ready for a break. Now Grant Nicholas and Taka Hirose are back from respective side projects and are once again ready to rock and roll.
Doors at the Nick Raynes LCR open at 7:30pm, and support act The Virginmarys are already on stage at 7:45, meaning that many ticket holders miss the blistering I Want To Take You Home from their new album Divide, and possibly several more songs as well. Whether by conscious choice or not it is a real shame, as Ally Dickaty, Danny Dolan and Matt Rose have conjured up an explosive blend of rock, punk and grunge that always sets the stage alight.
Ally's tortured vocals and searing guitar work is picked up by Danny's ferocious drumming and augmented by Matt's bass in an attempt to bring a half empty hall to life. Where are all the students? The hall desperately needs 500 freshers to suddenly arrive and turn the floor into one giant circular pit. Perhaps they are still recovering from the week before. Perhaps they have already blown too much of their first term's student loan? (£22.50 is a lot to splash out on a headline band that last released an album when you were 14 years old) Who knows? All I can say is that someone needs to book The Virginmarys to come back to Norwich soon. The final two songs are Motherless Land, the single from the new album, and the wonderful Just A Ride from King Of Conflict. The audience has finally bulked out and has started to enjoy themselves, in a normal-for-Norfolk head-nodding kind of way. 'Thanks for being such a lively bunch', quips Dickarty with a hefty dose of irony. He and the band really did give it their best shot tonight.
Feeder are on stage soon after nine, and Grant Nicholas is looking relaxed, and extremely well preserved for a man two years short of his fiftieth birthday. Taka Hirose looks elegantly exotic with geeky specs and black hair swept angularly upwards. They are joined on stage by new drummer Geoff Hollroyde, guitarist Tom Gleeson, and keyboards player Dean Deavell, and immediately launch into two songs from the new album, including the single Universe of Life. They may be new, but they are undeniably Feeder songs in the finest tradition. After two fairly lacklustre previous albums the band appears to be back on track.
Certainly Nicholas looks pleased to be back on stage, and back in Norwich. He tries to remember the 'heavy metal pub' where they first played here, but fails (Was it the King Edward VII in Aylsham Road?). They play a generous set of fifteen tracks in total, mixing in another couple of new songs from All Bright Electric, but plundering the back catalogue for a crowd pleasing selection that covers everything from 1997's High (from the Polythene EP) right through to Borders from 2012's Generation Freakshow. In between, a mass of arms are raised aloft to the biggest hits – Feeling a Moment, Just The Way I'm Feeling, and ending of course with Buck Rogers. Only Tumble And Fall is conspicuous by its absense. Towards the end, some of the thirty-something audience throw caution to the wind, and even get a middle-aged moshpit going.
After a slightly awkward pause (again, we are not good at sustaining calls for an encore), the band return for a final song from the new album Infrared-Ultraviolet, a joyous rendition of Seven Days In The Sun and the wonderful Just A Day.
Feeder may have been off the radar for a few years, they may never have been the darlings of the NME, but for the loyal fans that made the journey here tonight, the magic continues.
Photos by Tayla Lungley.
