THE FEELING

Assembly Rooms, Derby

THERE'S no doubting The Feeling's commitment to interacting with their fans.

For not only did the chart stars open last night's concert with You Tube videos of their fans singing karaoke versions of their hits, they then proceeded to explore almost every corner of Derby Assembly Rooms.

At one stage, energetic frontman Dan Gillespie Sells took a stage dive into the audience, encouraging concert-goers to pass him over their heads to the back of the floor. A minute later, he appeared in the balcony to sing an acoustic number. And to launch the encore, the five-piece outfit became a marching band, parading across the floor of the venue before returning to the stage.

Before this diversion, they had delivered the catchy tunes from their two albums with plenty of gusto. Tracks like Never Be Lonely, Join With Us, Turn It Up and Without You are undeniably infectious even if the lyrics tend to occasionally lapse into the cringeworthy ("Even though my heart's in the dungeon, I wonder what the time is in London").

But by the time The Feeling were knocking out boisterous covers of the Kink's You Really Got Me and Aerosmith's Walk This Way as parting shots, not many people were going home thinking it wasn't all great fun.

Nigel Powlson