Feeder

The Junction, Wednesday 16th February, £23

[Rating: 2.5/5]

Feeder performing live sound exactly as you’d imagine Feeder to sound live: just a little bit better than ‘meh’.

Take-it-or-leave-it pop-rock for the apathetic music fan- nothing special; not terrible, but not lovable either. It doesn’t help that you’re also left with the slightly bitter notion that they were almost certainly a lot better when they were younger.

All these are just semi-inevitable parts of the decaying process of a band. Rock-stars age and mellow, they fall out of touch with the sound that people want to hear, they fade and die- fine. But if this happens, do not, under any circumstances, choose a support act that will out-shine you by miles. Love Amongst Ruin, despite the need for some slightly better mixing, had fantastic stage presence and a much more energetic sound than the headline act. See them if you get the chance, they really deserve to be big in the future. Formed by past Placebo drummer Steve Hewitt, they manage to combine the quality of experience with the excitement and freshness of an emerging artist.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TataYXStVr8
Feeder – Buck Rogers

Feeder played a blend of older material and tracks from last year’s album Renegades. As with most waning bands the newer material was both less exciting and less well known than their ‘classics’; the older tracks being the only ones you’d really recognise. Buck Rogers (hello cindies playlist), Just a Day (flash-back to every ‘00s video game), and High (soundtrack to most coming-of-age films), all made appearances and were the only songs to really elicit a strong crowd response.

Feeling The Moment was well performed and was by far the strongest track of the evening; it manages to be punchy and pretty at the same time. They also debuted a brand new track, Boarders, from their forthcoming album. The song was, as with most of the set, on the pleasant side of so-so, but it’s also fairly hard to get excited about a track you don’t recognise and that no one in the audience seemed massively fussed to hear. I’m sure there are immense Feeder fans out there somewhere, they either just didn’t pitch up last night or were diluted by a listless majority.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjgQLEZ6vjY
Feeder – Feeling The Moment

It’s not that the set was in any way unpleasant, or even massively un-enjoyable, it was just ok. However, given the quality of the support act, and the quality of other bands performing in the same genre, it was hard to get away from the fact it just wasn’t good enough by comparison.