More about: This FeelingThe KicklipsSugarthiefHourglvssThe EstevansAlive Tour

Beginning in Sheffield on 2 October, This Feeling’s Alive Tour (in association with Scott's & Red Stripe) will be rolling around the UK’s key cities steeped in musical heritage. As the name ‘This Feeling’ becomes synonymous with emerging talent, a genuine community ethos, and - Red Stripe… we headed to the pizza-fuelled press day to get to know the latest bands who embody the essence of This Feeling. What does A-L-I-V-E really mean to them? We use each letter of the tour’s name to kickstart conversations about sound, ethos and the shared hopes and hurdles that come hand in hand with being in an emerging band. Here’s a little preview of what’s in store…

A is for Audio… 

To really get to know someone, especially musicians, you surely must start by asking them about their listening habits. In this rapidly changing streaming age, there’s huge amounts of pressure on having big hit singles, especially with emerging indie bands - big choruses and killer riffs are almost always the key to success with fans - but does this reflect how they listen to, and make, music? Not in Sugarthief’s case, as frontman Jordi explains: “We have a nice little thing during the day when we think, ‘it’s album time’, when you’ve had your chaotic day of shuffle playlists and people skipping queues, so we say - no, let’s put on an album and nobody touch it, listen to it all the way through.” This ‘album’ mindset has obviously fed into their release formats: “with our recent EP we ended up doing 7 songs, and we got told by everyone to hold on to them, but we just didn’t want to sit on them so we released them. There weren’t necessarily any singles, but the amount of people who message us saying their favourite songs, it’s always different tracks. Everyone has taken their own little part from the EP.”

L is for Local Scenes… 

With these four bands having been plucked from various corners of our fair Isle, there’s a lot to learn from each band about their local scene. Beck from Sheffield-based band The Kicklips offers: “The music scene in Sheffield has developed again recently, a lot of the little venues like Cafe Totem, and Record Junkee, you’ll find there’s loads more support for smaller bands, it’s like a little community.” For Hourglvss member Sophie, it’s another scene that provides inspiration. “Brighton is an amazing city, but it’s very condensed with that whole psychedelia fuzz sound - which is brilliant - but we’re more interested in creating a movement with a more pop direction, and get a few more bands who sound like us together. I saw a documentary about the Ninth Wave and all that Glasgow scene, saying it’s better to be in a movement together than just one band doing it, there’s power in numbers, and I just thought that it all feels really genuine. For me and Katie I love that feeling of it not being competitive, we’ve always worked together and supported each other.”

I is about the Impact of Live Music…

This Feeling acts as a springboard for emerging bands to widen their influence and play cities they never thought they’d even see the motorway signs for, this early on in their careers. We wanted to know how much live music means to these bands: as individuals and forming their identity as musicians. Katie from Hourglvss muses: “The whole reason to be in a band is to play live, to me. To create your own universe where your audience gets sucked in, that’s really where we want to take Hourglvss. We don’t just want it to be a gig, we want it to be an experience - for us it’s about creating the music, but it’s also about curating a brand and the visuals, being an artist - it’s so much more than the songs and the melody, for us. It’s about creating something bigger than what you’re doing.” Sugarthief started off as a live band, honing their craft onstage before they’d released any material, which helped them make one important realisation: “People just want to have fun and dance, and if you’re trying to perform perfectly, the live show can become a bit sterile. So we’ve started to learn a few different covers, then improvise off the back of them. We know and have been playing our songs for so long now, we don’t want it to become parrot-fashion, you know like when you do your GCSE French spoken word test. Everyone else seems to vibe off us if we’re having fun, and it’s honest.” 

V is for venues… 

The Alive Tour will see these four bands grace some of the country’s last vital independent venues. How important is it for these bands to keep playing in these small venues, and how is best to support them? According to The Estevans, it’s pure and simple: “Just go to gigs in those venues, and don’t be a twat outside so the neighbours don’t complain!”. For Sugarthief, it feels like the cities try and push the venues out: “That’s why its great having people like Mikey and This Feeling, who can put on a tour and take small bands up and down the country to indie venues, and they will sell out these venues, and bring people in and prove a point. Instead of waiting around and moaning about all the closures and stuff, they’re just going out and doing it, and using all those venues that could be threatened.”

E is for Ethos…

The vital spirit of This Feeling events is that they possess a tangible sense of community spirit and support. Katie from Hourglvss says: “We’re so supportive of other up and coming bands because it’s so difficult, especially when you’ve got to be in full-time work and not making much money - but loving, appreciating and supporting other bands in the same place, that is how this movement happens.” For The Kicklips, the impact of the work of This Feeling is as strong as ever: “We’d never actually get the chance to go down South without This Feeling giving bands like us the opportunity to play around, see new places and play to new people. In Sheffield the music scene is spread out all over the city centre, whereas in London you’ve got your little hotspots where everything’s going on - it’s like the whole of Sheffield concentrated into a half-mile radius… it’s a really exciting thing to be doing.” 

Finally, what kinds of things make these bands feel Alive?

The Estevans: “Chucking a table, or any kind of furniture, out the window”

Sugarthief: “When you have to really run for something, like a train.”

Hourglvss: “When we’ve been in my flat writing, and we finally feel like we’re getting somewhere and we’re both on the same page - I’ve never felt that same kind of connection with someone else.”

The Kicklips: “Rum and coke.”

Now that you have peered into the minds and souls of the artists, come and support the scene, the venues and the music at any of the following dates:

OCTOBER
02- Sheffield, Record Junkee
03 - Glasgow, Broadcast
04 - Manchester, Night People
05 - Brighton, Hope & Ruin
09 - Cardiff, Clwb Ifor Bach
10 - London, Thousand Island
11 - Guildford, Boileroom
12 - Birmingham, The Sunflower Lounge

Advance tickets will be £8 for London’s Thousand Island venue, and £6 elsewhere on the tour, available from thisfeeling.co.uk and metropolismusic.com.

More about: This FeelingThe KicklipsSugarthiefHourglvssThe EstevansAlive Tour