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.