Not Saving The Legs

Possibly I should have saved my legs for tomorrow’s 20 mile race today and not done Parkrun but I don’t. Having decided to do Parkrun, I should have probably taken it easy but the Lad has other plans.

We run at Shipley Country Park and come 4^th overall in a time of 21:55. The Lad is again disappointed with me as we were 3^rd with less than a km to go. Clearly he’s not happy with merely being first dog. 

In the evening I rest my legs by going up to Sheffield to see the Slow Readers Club.

Support is from a super group called ShadowParty who consist of some of the members of Devo and New Order although they are not the ‘big’ names from those bands.   

The lead singer is Devo’s guitarist Josh Hagar and originally he was joined by drummer Jeff Friedl but Friedl isn't touring with them on this occasion. From New Order we have Tom Chapman who was Bernard Sumner's bass player in Bad Lieutenant before Sumner invited him to replace Peter Hook in New Order and we have Phil Cunningham who has been their guitarist since 2002.

They released an album last year which only really gives a cursory nod to both 'source' bands. That’s not to say it wasn’t decent and it sounds good live but then with all that experience in the band you’d assume they know what they are doing up on stage. American Hagar is quite chatty frontman too even dedicating one song to ‘our horrible orange man'. I wonder who he means.

They are joined on stage by Ellen Lewis, who must be half the age of the rest of the fortysomething band, and she takes lead vocals on one track 'Present Tense' while offering keyboards and backing vocals on the others. Overall, they are pretty good.

Talking of fortysomethings, before the Slow Readers Club come on stage I get chatting to the chap next to me who is a big Readers fan and says he has seen them loads of times. He says the crowds at their gigs are fantastic e.g. just like the old days e.g. lively. ‘The old days’ he says, are the ones that ‘fans like us in our late 30s and early 40s remember fondly’. As he has totally misjudged my age, we are now best friends forever. 

The Slow Readers Club have been slow burning their way through the conscience of the nation over the last eight years. Yes, there’s been nothing quick their rise and they have built the band up the old way, the hard way, through gradually building a fanbase. They remained unsigned, while still maintaining day jobs, until their third album was released last year. Finally, now the band have managed to go full time as a band.

They are about a third of the way through a massive 48 date UK and European tour and tonight they have sold out the Leadmill, making it their biggest gig so far outside of their homeland of Manchester.

They open with ‘Lunatic’, the big commercial moment from that third album ‘Build A Tower’. Everyone knows it and singer Aaron Starkie has to raise his voice to be heard above the singing crowd. From there, the only way could have been down but the Readers have too many good songs for that. 

‘Lives Never Known’ is followed by debut single ‘Sirens’ but they have so many good songs in fact that mixing the set up every night isn't a problem. The 17-song set is pulled in almost equal measure from all three Readers albums with songs from different albums segueing faultlessly into each other. Such as the excellent transition of ‘You Opened Up My Heart’ into ‘Plant The Seed’. In amongst all the old favourites is a brand new track ‘The Wait’. 

‘Forever In You Debt’ slow builds the start of the finale from which ‘Feet on Fire’ and ‘I Saw a Ghost’ from the excellent ‘Cavalcade’ album follow. Then finally their latest single ‘On The TV’. There is no encore, they have already left it all out there.

(Saturday 16^th March)

All Bright Electric

Finally, on the best bike. Yes, I’ve not fixed my other bike yet although I have ordered a new wheel for it.

Things don’t start off too well and nearly end in disaster. I get to the end of the road and no front brake! For some reason it had jammed but I soon manage to fix it.

Tonight I am up in Sheffield, at the Leadmill for the second leg of Feeder’s All Bright Electric tour. I miss tonight’s football game for that, which is annoying as when I booked tickets the match was still on the Saturday. Bloody TV games. 

Is it just my age or are lead singers getting ever younger? Once singer\guitarist Fin O’Brien announces that The Jacques are from Bristol I find myself wondering what time he had to bunk off school in order to make it to Sheffield in good time. A bit unfair really, The Jacques are not new and have being going since early 2014. 

They play a Strokes-ish indie pop that they may well have discovered at school... The fact that they've been around a while now and, despite some critical acclaim, haven't broken through is perhaps because there isn't really anything about them that stands out. They're pleasant enough but struggle to command the attention of a Feeder focused audience tonight.

At the end of their set, I mishear and I think they're about to play a cover of 'Eleanor Rigby' but it's actually one of their singles called 'Eleanor Ring Me'. Yes, it must be my age.

Age is at least something I have in common with Feeder and none of us are getting any younger. This year it's twenty years since their début album 'Polythene' and therefore roughly twenty years since I discovered them. They've aged well, probably better than me.

Despite their longevity they have always maintained that they are not a band for the nostalgia circuit but sometimes I have wondered. Yes, when they come out on tour it is always to promote a new album. So it's never just the hits but the stuff that is not new really is 'just the hits' and the post-2001 Buck Rogers breakthrough hits at that.

As someone who has invested a lot of years in the band this is frustrating and from the feedback they get on social media it's not just me tearing hair out that I can't afford to lose. So this time we hoped things might be a little, shall we say, more varied from a band who have a back catalogue of nine albums, an early EP that has acquired cult status and literally dozens of classy b-sides. Promises have been made and set list votes put up, so excitement builds.

Then the tour starts in Liverpool with the set list almost exactly the same and in exactly the same order as on the tour they did before Christmas. So excitement declines...

But then Feeder do often get more daring as they find their feet on a tour and tonight we are at Sheffield's Leadmill. My second favourite venue of all time after Nottingham’s Rock City. The Leadmill has a generous curfew for bands and tonight Feeder are about to make good use of it.

The first cause for excitement is the reinstatement of 'Shatter', last sighted in 2008 on the Silent Cry tour. It's sounding very different tonight, less meaty perhaps with a quiet build up rather than them smashing straight into it but it’s slightly more elegant I would say. Very nice.

Next surprise, the inclusion of 'Sentimental' off the Renegades album. I have nothing against 'Sentimental' but this really must be a Grant Nicholas favourite as it does crop up more often than you would expect. It wouldn't have been my choice as a surprise but any surprises are very welcome.

Then I sort of settle in and enjoy the rest of the set, not really expecting anything else to surprise me until the encore, if at all. Of the usual suspects the back to back trio of 'Come Back Around', 'Insomnia' and 'Borders' all sound rather fine tonight. The epic newbie 'Eskimo' is particularly epic and there is a surprisingly strong 'Lost and Found', it's not usually one of my favourites.

Then we're half way through the closing double of 'Just the Way I'm Feeling' and 'Buck Rogers' when there is suspicious whispering amongst the band. Nicholas announces that there has been a lot of requests for the next track on Facebook, it's an oldie off 'Echo Park', we haven't played it for ages etc, etc... and I'm think stop being a f****** tease, we all know you're just going to play 'Buck Rogers' and then leg it... but then suddenly it isn't. It's 'Turn' which they have occasionally, shall I say rarely, been playing in the encore. Now it's in the set and the evening has suddenly got rather wonderful.

Well after that, he can do what he likes with the encore. He can even play 'Tumble and Fall' if he wants but the entertainment isn’t done yet, not by a long way. I’m obviously just expecting the excellent but incredibly populous finale of 'Seven Days in the Sun' and 'Just a Day' but first the band play the rather gorgeous 'Infrared-Ultraviolet' off the new album.

So value for money then but still we aren’t done. That intro he’s playing doesn’t sound much like 'Seven Days' to me, it sounds very like 'Sweet 16'. You crafty bastard Mr Nicholas, awesome stuff. You now have one very happy punter who’ll still be smiling about this next week.

While stood at the front of the gig, a couple of friends who I haven't seen for ages appear beside me. We have a good chat at the gig and afterwards over a beer in the Sheffield Tap.

(Friday 31^st March)

Conscience

My calves ache this morning because I have micro tears, according to Runner’s World. That’s tears (rips) not tears (wet things). Perhaps if they get any more painful I’ll have both.

L spends the afternoon working from home, trying to keep the boys awake so that we can return to Sheffield again tonight with a clearer conscience.

It must be about time for another Feeder gig and they duly oblige with another four date preview of their new album 'Generation Freakshow' which is released today. The ‘main’ tour to promote the album isn't happening until November which seems a very odd marketing tactic and makes it all the more important to be here tonight in Sheffield.

Support comes from Manchester's Daystar, an unashamed indie rock five-piece for which you could name check almost any Manchester legend as an influence and not be far wrong. I mull over several, Stone Roses, The Smiths, Oasis before settling on The Charlatans, who aren’t actually from Manchester...

Lead singer, Simon Monaghan, certainly has a bit of Oasis or more precisely Liam Gallagher about him and a distinctive voice, relayed via a 1950’s microphone. I’m never completely convinced about his vocals during their thirty minute set, when it’s good it’s good but it seems to suit some tracks better than others. I am convinced by their lead guitarist, who is excellent and overall the whole band put in an assured performance.

They say and do all the right things, as support bands are supposed to. I think it must be compulsory to complement the main band's soundcheck, so I’m not sure we can read much in to their prediction that we’re in for treat when Feeder hit the stage. We knew that anyway.

Grant Nicholas, Taka Hirose and co open with ‘Tiny Minds’ which before the gig I’d got in my head as being dropped to make way for the superior newbie ‘Headstrong’ but ‘Tiny Minds’ was actually excellent tonight as the set opener. Still no ‘Headstrong’ though.

While the new album is clearly ‘lighter’ than their last, it doesn’t sound it live as ‘Oh My’ tumbles across the stage towards us.

Next up, it is a pleasure to welcome back ‘White Lines’, as this is my favourite Renegades era track and it is the first of three from that album tonight. ‘Sunrise’ meanwhile is definitely lighter and a throwback to more poppier days.

I hadn’t really noticed but the guitar intros to ‘Borders’ and ‘Buck Rogers’ are actually quite similar. Grant seems to play on this tonight, whether this is totally deliberate I’m not sure. It is ‘Borders’ that follows though. It has become quite a gig favourite and would certainly had been a big hit had it been released by the band during their prime.

‘Hey Johnny’ is the most blatant tribute to Jon Lee yet and Grant seems to put extra feeling into delivering this one. It is followed rather appropriately by the more subtle ‘Just The Way I'm Feeling’ during which, bizarrely, a fight breaks out on the floor.

Once order is restored we get a bit of a surprise. It’s always nice to get surprises in a band’s setlist but Feeder aren’t normally big on this in theirs. ‘Down To The River’ wasn’t really what I had in mind but I certainly didn’t see its inclusion coming.

This slower moment gives me chance to look around. The demographic at a Feeder gig has changed over the last few years. The couples who saw some of their power rock ballads as ‘their song’ have been replaced by more of the ‘old guard’, grizzled Feeder veterans like me, but also a considerable dose of younger blood who seem more animated by the newer rockier stuff than the old classics. All thanks to the rock-focused exuberance of ‘Renegades' I assume.

Feeder actually seem to be on 'repeat'. If 'Renegades' was them rediscovering their 'Polythene' roots now they've pretty much recorded a similar album to its follow up 'Yesterday Went Too Soon'. No bad thing.

At this point the Nirvana-esque ‘Idaho’ riffs into view, signifying on its own a timely throwback to the early days. It opens a repeat of that impressively heavy closing threesome from February, followed as it is by ‘Insomnia’ and the terrific title track to ‘Generation Freakshow’

That’s only thirteen songs in the set, so that surely leaves four ‘must plays’ in the encore. The crowd await their return, now bored with incessantly chanting ‘Feeder Feeder’ they revert to locality with ‘Yorkshire Yorkshire’.

‘Children of the Sun’ is ‘must play’ because it’s to be the next single and is released next week. It opened the set back in February but tonight it opens the encore with Grant again on the acoustic. It’s a pleasant track let down by what I think is a cringeworthy title. It tries perhaps over hard to be the next Feeder anthem. Personally I don't think we need another Feeder anthem but many will disagree.

Grant then asks for requests, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do that before. I think he was expecting a deluge of shouts for ‘Buck Rogers’ but I didn’t actually hear anyone call for it, although surely someone somewhere did. There was an impressive selection of requests offered but the loudest shouts were predictably for ‘Just A Day’ but close second was ‘Sweet 16’ but he played Buck anyway. Which naturally went down a storm but somehow I don’t think the world would have ended if he’d played something else. ‘High’, also on the ‘must play’ list, wasn’t played and the world is still spinning. Then to finish, it’s time to break a few ribs with the closing ‘Just A Day’.

Overall I really like the balance of the sets at the moment. Three tonight from Renegades, eight from Generation Freakshow and again much less reliance on the ‘old favourites’. I’m thinking Grant is getting the confidence to play simply what he wants to play rather than what he thinks he should play.

Later I blow up a photo I took of the set list but couldn’t make out clearly enough on my camera at the time. ‘Shade’ was down as an option to finish the set and an additional song was scheduled in the encore, one of the options was ‘Yesterday Went Too Soon’. If I’d got those two I’d be taking the day off work today to recover.

Unfortunately the band came on late and came up against a 10.30 curfew, so they probably ran out of time. Anybody at the other gigs this week could be in for a real nice bonus.

Afterwards we bump into some friends and adjourn to Sheffield Tap for a beer, in my case something dark, smoked and porterish from Thornbridge. Daughter joins us. We keep it brief, conscience is calling.

(Monday 23rd April)