Friday night it was the turn of The Feelers and Stellar*, both playing at the Shepherds Bush Empire. I met Keryn at the Great Portland Street tube station and we took the Hammersmith Line around to the Shepherds Bush station. Actually, we were lucky to get there on time. The Central Line was down all day because of problems at Liverpool Street and a lightning struck track and the Northern Line High Barnet branch was basically not working because of a person under a train. This meant Keryn had to catch the bus to Camden Town, ride the tube to Kings Cross and change there to meet me at Great Portland Street. This probably means nought to most but it made things rather complicated.
Anyhow, we got there with a bit of time to spare so had a bit of dinner at a cafe across the road from the venue. The lines to get in weren’t big and by the time we had finished we were able to show our tickets and walk in. The doors opened at 7pm and there was no indication of when the bands would start. We had tickets for the stalls so were milling around the floor while waiting. The SBE has four levels, the top three balconies all seated, and Keryn was none to happy I was making her stand for another night. I was worried that there weren’t going to be many people there, but by the time The Feelers came on stage (about 8.30pm) the place was pretty full. During The Feelers set someone mentioned there were over 2000 people present, so I shouldn’t have worried. The Feelers were great, having the hard task of playing first to an audience that had a large quota that didn’t know there songs. It was quite a relief to me to be able to sing along and hear others in the crowd singing as well, I thought that Keryn and I were maybe the only ones to own their second CD in the UK (other than Maree and Scotty, but they were in France at the time).
So, The Feelers were great. I knew most of the songs except for a few that were presumably off their first CD, but it was all good fun, the crowd happily bouncing along, even if they didn’t know the words. All too soon they had finished and the roadies were on to change a few things before Stellar* arrived. Keryn went off at this point to get some water and didn’t actually return until 3 songs into the Stellar* set. Apparently the bar was understaffed and they had anti-Keryn goggles one.
Stellar*, I felt, weren’t as good as they could have been. We saw them in Auckland playing before Garbage and they were good then, only to be eclipsed by Garbage on the night. This time they played well enough, and Boh Runga seemed to enjoy herself and was chatty, but they just didn’t seem that good. Don’t know what it was, maybe the crowd wasn’t in to the show as much. They certainly played some good songs but it wasn’t until the final encore that I started jumping (a great version of ‘Violent’). I still enjoyed it, but it wasn’t the best it could be.
So, that was that, we left after Stellar* finished and made our way to the tube and found our way home. Thankfully all the tube troubles were over so it was an easier trip this time. I haven’t got any more concerts lined up now, well, I haven’t bought any tickets anyway. The Tragically Hip play in November and there’s a concert by Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) with the Royal Symphonic Orchestra in December, but I don’t know if I can afford them. We’ll see (or Keryn’ll see, I should say).
