Simone Felice @ The Bush Hall
Alejandro De Luna
Review originally published for Gigslutz 16/04/2014
Preceded by two magnificent shows from the underrated Birmingham-based Nick Drake-like Dan Whitehouse, and David Ford´s Tom Waits-obsessed dark atmospheres, it seemed like New York raconteur Simone Felice would have a tough night surpassing his opening acts. But the founding member of The Felice Brothers and The Duke & The King easily conquered the crowd with a set that included renditions of his previous projects and wisely chosen, American guitar-driven solo tales in this beautiful hall of exquisite décor.
Simone Felice is one of those artists that can analyse tragedy and misfortune with an introspective vision of highway-like American nostalgia. At just twelve he suffered a brain aneurysm and was pronounced clinically dead for several minutes. A couple of years later, convinced that music and New York´s street bohemia was the right path for him, he quit school in order to play in bars, subways and streets with The Felice Brothers; but tragedy overwhelmed him repeatedly. In 2009, he lost his first child due to a miscarriage (which influenced his work with The Duke & The King) and in 2010 he underwent emergency open-heart surgery to correct the slow, degenerative effects of a childhood congenital disorder, that intellectually influenced him to pursue a solo career flooded with witty lyrics and melancholic poetry.
