For a band to play a song by an act who clearly inspired them is to take a calculated risk. Will it sound like an homage? Or will it tip their hand to the audience that this is what they really wanted to be all along? Playing a full show devoted to a band they love is likely to invite comparisons they may not want. While it never seemed that
the Feelies
were trying to sound like
the Velvet Underground
, there was never a doubt they saw them as kindred spirits given their adoration of the rhythm guitar, their eager embrace of simple, hypnotic percussion, and their status as East Coast individualists with an aversion to creative compromise. On October 13, 2018,
played a special show at the White Eagle Hall in Jersey City, New Jersey, where they performed an entire set from
's songbook, and five years later, they released the concert on the album
Some Kinda Love: Performing the Music of the Velvet Underground
, tearing through 18
VU
classics in 71 minutes. The album is a love note to a band they obviously admire, but it also clarifies what it was about the
Velvets
that spoke to them so clearly. They don't bother with open-ended noise-fests like "Sister Ray" or "European Son," or dirges like "Venus in Furs" or "Heroin." They prefer the high-energy numbers that made folks dance when they played the ballroom circuit in the '60s, like "What Goes On" and "There She Goes Again," and even as they indulge their fondness for
Lou Reed
's skronky guitar solos on "I Heard Her Call My Name" and "Run Run Run," the percussion team of
Stanley Demeski
and
Dave Weckerman
lays down the beat with a strength and insistence that
Maureen Tucker
herself would envy.
Glenn Mercer
Bill Million
's guitars lock into a tight, gleeful melody without missing a ringing downstroke. When they do slow down on "New Age," their understanding of the material remains complete, and bassist
Brenda Sauter
adds a lovely, suitably understated vocal on "After Hours". Above all,
are clearly having a ball playing this music. These songs are vitally important to them, and they strive to do right by them, but this doesn't sound like a stuffy, studied re-creation of
the Velvets
. It sounds like a party where five fans dive deep into some cherished songs and attack them with an ideal balance of reverence and abandon, and they inject enough of their own personality into them that no one would dare call them copycats.
Some Kinda Love
is absolutely the work of
, and the taut magnetism they generate live comes through in this recording. It's just a show where they're playing some covers they really, really like -- and given how great they sound playing them, why wouldn't they? ~ Mark Deming