Stop humping the keyboard: The Feeling at Shepherds Bush Empire!

'Tis gig day! And, to be honest, the first in quite a while - there was a time, many moons ago, when Yaz and I were gigging pretty much every week. Not so anymore, but hey - that made tonight all the more special!

And tonight was: The Feeling!

This is my third time seeing them this year after a very small gig at the 100 Club in Oxford Street back in February/March, which was in turn followed by their support slot at the Nada Surf gig at the end of March. That did not diminish that little pre-gig thrill I always get, though.

So Yaz and I rendezvoused at 17:40 (she'd tell you that I was late which is *SO* not true), and we stormed down to the Bush where we grabbed a McDonalds for a quick lifespan reducing dinner on the go. Yaz even bought two apple pies for 99p, which led us to scour Shepherds Bush Green for a reasonably respectable looking homeless person to give it to (homeless people are two-a-penny in the Bush, but finding one that looks like he wouldn't trade it for some crack is pretty goddamned difficult). I thought about suggesting that we make two homeless people fight over it, but time being of the essence meant that I'll save that little gem of an idea for another time...

Anyway, mission successful (Yaz even warned him to let it cool for a bit so that he didn't burn his dirty little fingers on it), we jumped into the queue, and, well, queued. Over the years, Yaz and I have developed a little plan to getting our prefered seats in the Empire. Basically, I get my ticket checked first, while she holds the queue up by having to get her immensely massive handbag checked for WMDs or some such thing; I've seen people fall into that thing and never come out it's so big.

So, again, mission successful. While waiting for the support we settled back for some convivial conversation about... God, I haven't got a freakin' clue? We talk about such inane topics... Oh, yes, for some reason we did talk about trying to smuggle some raw meat into the Empire, but why we would even think about that completely escapes me.

*Ahem*

Anyway, the support act were Captain, who I kind of liked, even if their street team had given me a flyer promising three free downloads from the myspace page - although I subsequently discovered that the offer EXPIRED LAST MONTH. Harumph. I won't hold that against them (much), because they were reasonably enjoyable, and the lady band member was wearing no shoes and an ill-fitting dress. Good times.

On to the main act: The Feeling were, as usual, awesome live. They're actually one of those bands whose songs I love, but I feel that their album is a little bit too slickly produced. Live, though, they're super-rockingly great; hell, they even did an amazing cover of Video Killed the Radio Star! The lead singer is a bit nutty, spinning and whirling all over the place like the Tazmanian Devil; I actually thought he was going to wipe out the other guitarist at one point. At the end he was jumping off amps, throwing his jacket at the drummer by accident, and even dry-humping the keyboard, which is a sight I didn't really think I'd witness in my lifetime.

And - how great is this? - they recorded the frikkin' gig and we got to buy a double CD set of it immediately after it finished! I'm listening to it again now!

Here's some freakin' pictures:



Honest to God it does say THE FEELING there, it just got kinda bleached out.


This is Captain. They were good, but not enough to make me buy their album. Maybe I would've been swayed by some FREE DOWNLOADS, hmmmm?


Rock on!


More, um, rocking on...


...And the crowd goes wild - WOO-HOO!


I don't know what's going on here, but it kind of looks like that bit at the beginning of Superman The Movie when Marlon Brando shoots his kid into space.