"You can get away with murder in pop music," said Dan Gillespie Sells, the lead singer of MOR pop sensations The Feeling. "We like getting away with murder. We like great big choruses with great big hooks," he added. So does a jam-packed audience at the UEA. As the lights dim, the crowd goes ballistic. A beautiful, a cappella harmony of I Want You Now fills every inch of the air and the excitement level rises palpably. By the time the mesmeric Sells and the rest of The Feeling stride on stage, we're all going crazy. Music to watch girls byThis is happy music. It's music to watch girls by, it's music to watch boys by, it's music to make sweet beautiful lurrve to and it's music to run through meadows chasing rainbows. Sells sports a 1950s short back and sides and is clad in a white short-sleeved shirt and black waistcoat. The whole effect is reminiscent of a taut and lean renegade Soviet trade-union leader. He rushes straight into Fill My Little World and the crowd respond, stadium-style by waving their arms on cue left then right. Sells commands attention. He brings Fill My Little World to a crashing close with a back-handed helicopter swirl of his guitar, culminating in a raised clenched fist. Power to the people indeed. Music for the soulAfter a storming Anyone, he finally pauses to converse with his adoring public. "The water's for my throat," he explains, taking a slug from a plastic bottle "and the whisky's for my soul," he declares, glugging from another. "And I decide to drink for my soul." There's plenty of that on offer. The exquisite Rose follows and my friend confesses "If someone wrote a love song like that for me I'd be a goner." For Never Be Lonely he splits the crowd in half, panto-style and gets us singing against each other. We blindly follow our gorgeous leader. The Feeling honed their skills as a house band playing cheesy yet cool covers to skiers in the Alps and it shows. They’re tight as a pair of ski boots – and their version of Video Killed the Radio Star goes down a storm, as does a stonking encore of Fat-Bottomed Girls. Karen Carpenter meets Freddie Mercury"I'd like to be Karen Carpenter in Neil Young's body, with Freddie Mercury's trousers," said Sells. On the evidence of Friday night he's pretty much there, only with the added genius of Madness' song-writing simplicity. Two minor gripes. One, it's good manners to remember where you are (especially when it's only the first night of your tour) and two, it could have been a little bit longer as it was basically a live version of the album Twelve Stops From Home. But then, I'm just being curmudgeonly. Beautifully crafted, soaring pop songs with killer hooks and happy vibes that stay with you long after the event? Even Victor Meldrew would have thought the world a better place. The Feeling played the UEA, Norwich, on Friday, 16 February, 2007. | 
