The Feeling
IF The Feeling's pleasures were any guiltier, the venues they'd perform in would have barbed wire and gun turrets on the perimeter.
According to statistics, the Sussex soft-rockers received a mind-boggling 97,436 plays on UK radio in 2006, meaning that one of their songs was heard somewhere in the country every five minutes.
Suffice to say, their irony-free pop is burrowed into the nation's conscious, and primed for an enthusiastic crowd-sing-along.
The sell-out audience here tonight duly oblige, participating in a one-side-versus-the-other face-off of the "b-b-b-b-b-b-baby, I think I'm going c-c-c-crazy" refrain of Never Be Lonely.
Admittedly, things haven't been going in a strictly upwards direction for the group.
Although sophomore album Join With Us debuted at number one back in February, the Curse of the Fickle Tesco Shopper (who have previously abandoned Orson and the Scissor Sisters) struck, with attendant singles Without You, Turn It Up, and the eponymous Join With Us failing to penetrate the Top 40 at all, peaking at numbers 53, 67 and 87 respectively.
Flagging sales
Still, if flagging sales have affected them, it's fair to say The Feeling aren't showing it.
Opening with an inventive montage of YouTube footage featuring devout fans singing their hits, the curtain drops and they launch into I Thought It Was Over which, with its electro-disco overture, is their one concession to modernity.
From there on, multiple set-pieces are whipped out of their M&S-sleeves.
Virginia Tech
During Without You, written in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, dashing frontman Dan Gillespie-Sells launches himself missile-like into the audience, crowd surfing all the way to the back, before reappearing to croon the plaintive Strange from atop the balcony.
For the first encore, they snake through the aisles as a marching band.
Despite Gillespie-Sells' renesche upbringing (he's the son of two lesbians, and was involved in left-wing politics from an early age), The Feeling resemble a Conservative Future meeting, and are crystallised as a middle-England mum's-favourite, a large proportion of whom are out in force.
Beginning as an an apres-ski Alps covers band, they were more likely to watch people disappear down lines of snow rather than the usual rock cliche of... watching lines of snow disappear down people.
The formative years show on well-judged Skool Disko cover versions of A-Ha's Take On Me and Hot Butter's Popcorn.
One new track, The Truth Comes Out When The Drink Goes In, is previewed, pivoted around a Culture Club-esque faux-regae beat.
While the night sags during the samey non-singles, aural WMDs such as Fill My Little World and Love It When You Call are pop songs so undeniable, their ear-worming melodies override notions of 'cool' or even 'taste'.
And, unlike similar deja-vultures such as The Hoosiers, they invest their material with a rare sincerity.
Ending with keyboardist Ciaran Jeremiah and bassist Richard Jones (aka Mr Sophie Ellis Bextor) surreally covering The Beastie Boys' (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!), it's clear that - short of dragging on the tour manager to perform a karaoke run-through of Spandau Ballet's Gold - The Feeling couldn't have pulled out any more stops.
What did you think of the show? Have your say.
Reviewed: Tue, 18 November, 2008
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