Los Campesinos!, Foundry, University of Sheffield

 

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The Breeders, Rock City

 

 

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Frank Turner: World Record Attempt, Saltbox, Nottingham

 

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Editors, Leadmill, Sheffield

 

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Feeder, Rock City, Nottingham

Supported by Cameron Hayes

Support tonight comes from Cameron Hayes. Who are in fact two people but the singer informs us that she is actually Cameron and the other person on stage, a drummer, is not. Then what we get is, without trying to be too unkind, karaoke. We hear guitar, bass and keyboards emanating from the stage alongside the drums and vocals. Spooky. There’s even a backing singer hiding somewhere. It keeps costs down I suppose.

For the record the drumming is fine and Cameron Hayes is a very able singer but, sorry, this is just not my idea of live music. It’s quite irritating really. 

Feeder is my idea of live music and for my second gig of their tour I turned up well-rehearsed as regards their new material. Five of the six tracks they are playing from their as yet to be released new album ‘Black/Red’ have been made available on YouTube.

 

 

The band also seem better ‘rehearsed’, and should be this far into the tour, than they were at the Lincoln gig last week and hopefully free of the illness that’s dogged them. It certainly all seems to hang together a lot better tonight and the crowd were way more into it. 

I’m really liking ‘The Knock’ and ‘Playing With Fire’ to which Grant Nicholas tries to get a mosh pit together. He tried that at Lincoln as well and nothing happened but here Rock City obliges and it gets livelier still when ‘Come Back Around’ and ‘Insomnia’ follow it. 

Then comes a rare outing for their second ever single 1996’s ‘Tangerine’, resurrected and revived with extra umph. That makes my night. Then it’s the tried and trusted finale starting with ‘High’, followed by ‘Buck Rogers’ and ‘Just A Day’ with newbie ‘Soldiers Of Love’ in the middle after an encore break.

Feeder are loud and on fire tonight and Rock City explodes in appreciative ticker-tape at the end.

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Feeder, Engine Shed, Lincoln

Supported By The Pearl Harts

Support tonight is from The Pearl Harts from East London. They are an all female two-piece in the style of Honeyblood or maybe Blood Red Shoes e.g. just guitar and drums. That's Kirsty Lowrey on guitar and Sara Shaw on drums. They have been around since 2014 with their DIY punk\grunge rock and have songs with great titles like the raucous ‘Pullin My Brains Out’. Which is as lively and as loud as it sounds, like most of their material. 

And so to Feeder. We know that they are due on when their own '20th Century Trip' comes across the PA although this is followed by Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir which is probably one of Grant Nicholas’s favourites and perhaps his latest inspiration.

This current tour is Feeder's longest for many a year and it also comes before their new album 'Black/Red' is released, it is due out in April. Personally I don’t think playing a new album before it’s out works terribly well as not even their most hardcore fans are very familiar with the tracks and therefore cannot carry the rest of crowd. I guess having invested the time and money in to what is a double album they are hoping this approach maximises sales. I'm not sure that'll work but what do I know. Maybe if they were touring after release as well but they'll be straight into festival shows after this tour where they won't be able to get away with playing much off it.

Mid-set Nicholas himself turns salesman and attempts a sales pitch by urge the audience to be really old skool and buy the actual physical product. That may of course be aimed at those with CD players in their brand new Jaguars, leather sets optional.

The length of the tour also seems to have resulted in shorter sets which got even shorter when Nicholas fell ill early on in the tour. Just maybe they have taken on a bit too much here. That said you can't fault the band's performance tonight even if it is only a bare thirteen song set with a two song encore.

The new material showcased is very early/late Feeder in that it's very rocky. Only perhaps 'Lost in the Wilderness' and 'Hey You' really had choruses the crowd could latch on to.

There are six tracks in total from 'Black/Red' alongside the usual batch of crowd pleasers from their 'mid' pop period when they had their hits but overall it's not the hits-laden night some casual fans may have been expecting. Thankfully for regulars like me their tours are now longer quite that predictable but there is still only room tonight for two more obscure tracks for us Feeder nerds both of which come from their last but one album 'Tallullah'. 'Kyoto' which grows on me a bit more each time I hear them play it live and the always brilliant 'Fear of Flying'.

The band are just a four-piece on this tour with no Dean Deavall their usual keyboard player in attendance. This aids their recent rockier approach, which is all good, yet means some segments are clearly on tape.

After an effervescent double of ‘Come Back Around’ and 'Insomnia', that finally got the room jumping, we nearly got an extra track which, according to the set list, would have seen either 'My Perfect Day' or 'Tangerine' played but after a debate they opted for neither. Early on in the tour they were playing both as a fabulous foursome from the band's début album 'Polythene' along with 'Polythene Girl' and the ever present 'High' which is what they skipped on to before ending the set with the obligatory finale of 'Buck Rogers' followed by 'Just A Day' in the encore after another 'Black/Red' track 'Soldiers of Love'.

The band are as ever excellent, performance wise, but tonight did feel a bit like one they wanted to get their lead singer through safely while not taking too many extra risks.

The Vaccines, Octagon, Sheffield

Supported By Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers & Divorce                               

Tonight I am seeing the Vaccines and for the first time in many a year I am at the Sheffield Octagon. This is because I was too slow in getting tickets for Rock City which sold out very quickly.

Outside the Octagon it seems to have changed somewhat. For starters there’s a big multi-storey car park right next to it. I’m sure that wasn’t there before. It’s convenient but will no doubt be a nightmare to get out of later. All the same I give it a go.

Inside it is pretty much how I remember it. A big airy venue with a high stage and now with the added bonus of decent local beer e.g. Thornbridge. I should come here more often.

I just catch the end of Divorce, who are from Nottingham, but sadly I didn’t see much of them.

  

After only a fifteen minute break we then have Teen Jesus & the Jean Teasers. Who have a great name and give a very energetic performance. They are four girls with 400 tattoos. Not judging just saying... They are also from Australia and are possibly just the type of raucous warm-up we need for the Vaccines. Who are, as ever, pretty lively themselves.

 

This tour is to promote their new album, which is their sixth, ‘Pick Up Full Of Pink Carnations’. The stage is dutifully adorned with carnations although not many of them seem to be pink.

They open with ‘Love To Walk Away’ off the new record before going straight into a run of favourites. From the lively ‘Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra)’ into the even more lively ‘I Can’t Quit’ with the guitar of Timothy Lanham hogging centre stage and singer Justin Hayward-Young ‘dancing’ madly.

 

Then we get ‘Post Break-Up Sex’ before the classic and anthemic ‘Wetsuit’ stops the show. As it always does with its poignant reminder of the unstoppable passage of time. This gives everyone a breather.

There were plenty from the new record, as you’d expect. Six tracks in total including the excellent ‘Discount de Kooning (Last One Standing)’ and these were well received, no doubt thanks to its very familiar formula. There was also the same number from their debut. Again largely as expected.

 

I think we will have to agree to disagree on what they should have picked from the rest of their albums but then few bands agree with me on this point.

The end of the set was peppered with favourites as they wound things up with 'I Always Knew', ‘If You Wanna’ and, as always, ‘All In White’.

 

For the encore there were two more tracks from the new album ‘Sometimes, I Swear’ and ‘Lunar Eclipse’ before ‘All My Friends Are Falling In Love’ closes an excellent performance or so we thought.

But there was one more track as the band struck up ‘Nørgaard’ but Justin didn’t offer any vocals and let the crowd sing it by themselves. A few seconds later he simply walks off stage and leaves the crowd to it as the band play the full track.

It’s a track that has somewhat dropped off their setlist in the last few years. It has some problematic lyrics and perhaps the 37 year old Hayward-Young, who admits his homage to the Danish model now seems a bit creepy, would rather not sing it anymore. This may or may not be the solution.