As Moonshine fades out, a picture of Jon Lee appears on the giant curved screen. The members of Feeder stand silent and motionless as the song’s programmed drum loop continues for what must be a minute or more.
Not just a moving tribute to their late drummer, it’s a powerful finale to the band’s end-to-end performance of Comfort In Sound, the album written in the wake of his death. When it was reissued earlier this year, frontman Grant Nicholas described the 2002 LP as “very close to our hearts”. And that’s very apparent at O2 Academy, Brixton tonight; its 12 songs are played as reverentially as they deserve, with no banter to distract. What’s more, they all sound entirely faithful to the original recordings; unlike most albums-played-in-full situations, the hits haven’t evolved into sloppy facsimiles over years of repetition and the rarely played deep cuts don’t sound tentative or soulless.
Feeder @ O2 Academy Brixton
It certainly helps that, even after all these years and subsequent releases, Comfort In Sound (which allowed Nicholas to put his “mixed feelings and emotions into writing songs of recovery”) still contains some of the singer-guitarist’s best compositions: the album “opened both [himself] up as a writer and the depth and soul of Feeder as a band”.
That depth and soul plays out from the very start. The plaintive opener Just The Way I’m Feeling opens quietly with the lines “Love in, love out, Find the feeling/ Scream in, scream out, time for healing” before the buoyant chorus offers a glimmer a hope: “And I feel it’s going down, ten feet below the ground/ I’m waiting for your healing hand, one touch could bring me round”.
The punchy Come Back Around feels more resolutely optimistic but individual lines like “I miss you around” cut right through. Helium (like the stomping Godzilla later) shows off Feeder‘s darker, scuzzier musical side with bass player Taka Hirose and drummer Geoff Holroyde getting their first big workout of the night. Child In You, by contrast, is sonically far more tranquil and beautiful, only highlighting Nicholas’ tender delivery of lines like “Close your eyes and drift away to some place new/ Where the skies are blue brings back the child in you”.
Feeder @ O2 Academy Brixton
The title track, lifted by incisive backing vocals from guitarist Tommy Gleeson, glimmers like a beacon of hope, while Forget About Tomorrow pairs buoyant music with darker sentiments. Like the rest of the album — and Aya Takano‘s singular album artwork that’s brought to life behind the band — it feels timeless, not stuck in a moment in time.
The quiet-loud-quiet Summer’s Gone has Nicholas digging deep as he belts out the bridge (“Oh, you’re thinking back, you’re going back to places that you’ve been/ Where days could last forever, but you can only dream”) before playing a charged solo. A mournful Quick Fade gets straight to the heart of the matter with lines like “I miss you more than words can say”; lump in the throat stuff, even if you don’t know the backstory. Find The Colour, in turn, is awash with hope and optimism; a poignant Love Pollution finds the light in the shadows; and the yearning Moonshine offers a gentle resolution (“Only you, it’s only for you”) and that stirring tribute to Lee.
A few minutes after the drum loop suddenly stops and the stage abruptly cuts to black, Nicholas returns for what turns out to be a more playful second half. Immediately more chatty, he admits performing Comfort In Sound is “quite an emotional journey” before a solo acoustic rendition of High turns into a joyous singalong. As Hirose and Gleeson return, they’re joined by hard-hitting former Feeder (and current Skunk Anansie) drummer Mark Richardson for big, bold, booming renditions of Feeling A Moment and Pushing The Senses.
Feeder @ O2 Academy Brixton
They look and sound like a band having fun, which continues into the thrashy, Foo Fighter-y Come Back Around B-side Feel It Again and swirly, stompy Opaque. A bonus track on the Japanese version of Comfort In Sound, tonight it’s dedicated in part to album producer Gil Norton; despite only one previous public airing (in Leeds last night), the song’s “rough around the edges” performance only adds to its swagger. An instant classic.
Clearly emboldened by the reception, Nicholas teases the audience with the Buck Rogers riff before leading them through a riotous rendition of what remains Feeder’s biggest hit. By this point, nobody in the stalls is standing still and everybody in the balcony’s out of their seats — a situation that remains unchanged as Just A Day (and its lockdown video) end the night on a grinning, good-time high.
Live review of Feeder at O2 Academy, Brixton, London on 27th September 2025 by Nils van der Linden. Photos by Kalpesh Patel.
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