The Feelies
Some Kinda Love: Performing the Music of the Velvet Underground
Bar None Records
The choice was inevitable. When the organizers of the Velvet Underground Experience exhibition in the East Village decided someone should play a concert of the Velvet’s music, the obvious choice was The Feelies. Not only is the Velvet’s strum and drone an internal part of The Feelies’ music, they have been doing their versions of Velvet Underground songs on record and in their sets for years. The tribute concert was originally slated for the gallery space where the exhibition was going to take place, but demand for tickets necessitated a move across the river to White Eagle Hall in Jersey City, NJ. Now, thanks to Bar None Records release of Some Kinda Love: Performing the Music of the Velvet Underground, we can all share in the celebration that took place on October 13. 2018.
The program includes material from all four Velvet Underground albums and a few that showed up on later collections of outtakes and rarities. The concert opens with “Sunday Morning,” the first song from the first album. “Sunday Morning” reflects the sweet and sentimental side of the band. The Feelies run through the junkie classics, like “Waiting for the Man,” “White Light/White Heat,” and “Run, Run, Run,” but they don’t take on “Heroin”. When the time comes for freakout guitar solos, The Feelies deliver.
The softer side of the Velvet Underground is well represented, too. The dreamy reverie of has beens and losers, “New Age” is heartwrenching. Bassist Brenda Sauter does a good approximation of Nico’s ice queen delivery on “All Tomorrow’s Parties.” She also channels the naive innocence of Moe Tucker on “Afterhours” and the band does feel-good songs like “We’re Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together” and “Rock and Roll.” The set ends with the last song from Loaded, the Velvet’s final album, “Oh Sweet Nuthin’.”
The Feelies doing the Velvet Underground repertoire is as close as we’re going to get to the real thing. The Feelies know and love this material and put their all into every pulse and guitar feedback freakout. I really wish I could have been at the White Eagle Hall to experience the show in person. Some Kinda Love comes close to putting us in the audience for this celebration of the work of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Moe Tucker and Doug Yule.
www.thefeeliesweb.com
