Feeder

British rock band Feeder arrived in Oxford at the early stages of the ‘Tallulah’ tour, promoting the new album with the same name after it reached number four in the Official UK Album Chart back in August this year.

With such an extensive back catalogue of hits, the band obviously wanted to show off their new record, but unlike other artists, appreciate that the crowd may also want to hear some of the classics. The evening began with new track ‘Youth’ erupting into life with a tidal wave of melody, before flying back to 2010 track ‘Renegades’ and then back to 2005 classic ‘Feeling a Moment’. A fantastic way to start proceedings.

The set continued with newer tracks ‘Daily Habit’, ‘Fear of Flying’ and ‘Shapes and Sounds’ all from ‘Tallulah’ before heading back for ‘Figure you out and ‘Just the way I’m feeling’.

Back to the new material we were treated to heavier track ‘Kyoto’ which sounded great, followed by ‘Kite’ and the title track off the new album ‘Tallulah’.

The evening continued in this form with nine tracks in total from the new record, nipping back and forth through their extensive library, including a first live performance of ‘Guillotine’ after front man Grant Nicholas decided at the end of track ‘High’ that it was about time they gave it an airing. It was great to see a band thinking on their feet, changing the set list and going on crowd reaction.

After this a few members of the crowd were shouting out what songs they wanted to hear. Other artists may have taken offence to their well crafted set list being altered, but the band took it in their stride. It led to Nicholas taking a poll on which track to play - ‘7 days in the sun’ or ‘Pushing the senses’, with ‘7 days in the sun’ winning and sounding great. All of this before flying into pop track ‘Buck Rogers’ which Nicholas apparently didn’t write for the band but ended up being one of their biggest tracks.

An encore ensued of newer track ‘Blue sky blue’ before finishing with ‘Just a day’ to rapturous applause, from a hot and happy audience at the O2 Academy.

The evening lasted just shy of two hours covering twenty one tracks, as well as engaging conversation with Grant Nicholas, which flew by in no time.

The band, now playing for over 25 years, are masters of their craft, Grant Nicholas, Taka Hirose and the rest of the band knew how to work the crowd to where they wanted them. Nicholas early on in the evening goaded the crowd telling them they were quiet in between tracks, all in good spirits to try and garner more noise. Later going on to tell the crowd they had been amazing.

The whole band took to the front of the stage to humbly express their gratitude at the end of the show. Great to see that they’re not taking playing for granted even after so many shows, and still seemingly enjoying life on the road.

With over 10 nights still left on this tour throughout November, don’t miss this opportunity to see the band live and relive those classics, as well as the great new album.

Support for the evening came from Novacub.

Photo credit: Russell Fujak