The Feeling/Wallis Bird

February 17, 2011 Off By Jon

Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth

The Feeling have been busy writing new material and have been away from the public eye for quite a while now, they feel the time is right now to get out on a tour of intimate venues to try out their new material in front of their fans. The band are used to playing much larger venues, so this show at Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms is a rare treat for the Sold Out capacity crowd of just 450 people.

On the road with them for this ‘Searched Every Corner’ tour is 26 year old Irish singer song writer Wallis Bird who performs a set full of energy and lots of warm Irish. charm, her powerful voice delivers her songs in a way that makes everybody look up and take notice. During one of her numbers, Wallis was playing her guitar at a such frantic pace she broke a string, calmly and professionally carrying on as nothing had happened. The lasting memory for the audience was of a delightful catchy song called ‘To My Bones’ that had been expertly written with a chorus any top artist would be more than happy with, I fully expert to hear a lot more from her in the future.

The Feeling arrived onstage at around 9.30pm and started the evening off with a new song which is to be released as a single in March called ‘Set My world On Fire’ and part way through the song the band must have felt they were on to a winner as the audience had picked up on the catchy chorus “Set my world on fire, I love you more everyday” and started to sing along. The set was a good mix of old and new with an old song being played after each new one. The Portsmouth crowd were really enthusiastic at the end of each song with song requests being called out and even an I love you directed at lead singer Dan Gillespie who reacted and said “I’d say I love you too but I cannot see you with these lights in my eyes, ok then I love you too, they say love is blind with these lights so am I”.

The band continued with further new songs such as ‘Another Soldier’, ‘Search Every Corner’ and an upbeat dance number ‘Dance For Lights’ which all seemed as good as any of the previous material that they have written. The band left the stage with every one of the 450 strong crowd cheering and shouting for them to return. They of course returned with the taped intro of one of their biggest numbers from the last album ‘I thought I was over’ which got the audience singing along once again. The evening ended with another new song called ‘Undeniable’ which Dan introduced as a love song and started with just an acoustic guitar with the band joining in part way through.

It was a great evening showcasing some promising new songs that will feature on the bands next album, a night that the few in attendance will remember for along time to come.

Set List
Set My World On Fire
Fill My World
Another Life
Never Be Lonely
Say No
Rose
Another Soldier
Sewn
Search Every Corner
Dance For Lights
Love It When You Call

I Thought It was Over
Undeniable
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