The Felice Brothers – Live At Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds

The Felice Brothers are of the earth, and plough a deep furrow in it...

The ultimate showmanship of any band is when they are in union with their audience and love playing as much as the crowd loves listening. This is truly the case with up-state New York’s Felice Brothers. The band plays with a glorious passion and huge smiles on their faces, seducing a sedate gathering into a jubilant one. They carouse through a range of songs, some from a sprawling back catalogue, and some as fresh as a batch of moonshine.

They kick off with new track ‘Cherry Licorice’, before launching into sing-along gem ‘Whiskey In My Whiskey’, setting the tone straight away for a barnstorming set and transforming a crowded Leeds venue on a soggy night into a hoedown in the Catskills.

The tempo is slowed for the poignant narrative of ‘Wonderful Life’ and when a guitar string breaks, keys and accordion-player James Felice fills the repair time by putting everything into a solo rendition of ‘Got What I Need’. He’s a formidable presence; barrel-chested and bear-like, he can belt out a tune with minimal effort.

Meanwhile, Felice brother Ian, wiry with a rasping voice that cuts through tender lines like cheese wire, has repaired his guitar and rips into his numbers, trading spots on the microphone in Beatles fashion with bassist Josh Rawson crooning textured harmonies to the folk tunes washing through the room. The back half of the crowd seem to just stare – a confused fusion of folk purists, indie kids and city centre types who’ve wandered in. But those down the front complement the band’s set with some howling and stomping as ‘Run Chicken Run’ gets the Belgrave sweating.

The Felice Brothers are as unglamorous as their subject matter: tales of drug dealers, road trips and forlorn waitresses, broken romance and weird life in the boondocks. They come from the mountains and played in the subways of New York, and the road life seems to suit them. Like most folk bands, they’re in it for the music. Occasionally it feels to be on the brink of something shambolic, but then you recognise how organised a group has to be to hold that sometimes fragile and rambling sound together, and they support each other’s playing with fraternity.  

The new songs slip in to the set seamlessly and the band beguiles with some favourites – ‘Frankie’s Gun’, played with much gusto by a personnel who might justifiably be jaded with delivering it, and ‘Penn Station’, a delirious tribute to the holy bum sleeping rough on the streets. It’s when they thrash out these disjointed jigs – the fiddle riffs adding a cheerful grating saw-through-metal quality to each tune – that they are at their best. Backwater mountain blood energy played with the abandon of a messy wedding party.

At the end James thanks the audience, but the gratitude is ours to bestow, and those in attendance holler in appreciation. And in no time James is there at the back of the hall, signing copies of the new record. Unassuming and beaming with benevolence, The Felice Brothers are of the earth and plough a deep furrow in it.

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Words: Nick Rice
Photos: Howard Scott

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