Felicity Brings Their Album Release Party To The Abbey

Orlando,FL (8/27/21)

It’s a balmy Friday night in downtown Orlando Florida, and tonight, hot up and coming band Felicity is holding court on the stage of The Abbey an intimate happening venue. This isn’t your ordinary everyday concert, tonight this is the bands album release party. Yes, this evening everyone gets to join in on the fun and celebrate the release of the band’s first full-length album Dear Universe.

As the sun set the crowd started trickling into The Abbey. Of course, there were plenty of friends and family among the crowd in attendance tonight.  Not only to support the guys, but this is also a hometown show for Felicity. Since their founding back in 2013, the trajectory for these guys has been straight up.  Just months after they came together, they found themselves on stage at the Warped Tour and haven’t looked back since.

Starting back in 2015 with their first self-titled EP Felicity, they went on to record Brace Yourself in 2016, and 2019’s release Old Habits. With the down time due to the pandemic, it was now time to take things up a notch and put together a full-length album. Recorded over a quick thirty-day period They created with Dear Universe. With all the previous material, and this latest effort they had a great mix of new and old material to entertain the fans at this hometown record release party.

As their fans gathered at the stage waiting impatiently for their favorite band to come out, they were soon rewarded when guitarist Andrew Rapier and Cory Nicholas, bassist Mike Alosa, and Tyler Dennett the drummer hit the stage. Everyone instantly recognized the opening notes of “Carpe Diem”, which is a great precursor for the album as a whole. Finally, singer Damien Fagiolino hit the stage and the band seamlessly kept going into “Ignite”.  For the uninitiated, this is a great introduction into Felicity’s world. Chock full of hard-hitting riffs, and a pop punk sensibility all with Damien Fagiolino delivering thought provoking lyrics in an earnest style. The look of absolute joy on every member of the bands face made perfect sense when he said to the fans that this was the first time in eighteen months that they actually played a live show.

As this is an album release party, it makes sense that they serve up big heaping’s of their latest effort. So, they played “Pendulum”, and followed it up with “Tough Luck” After the song ended, the band quickly presented a custom painted kick drumhead to Marshall Rones the shows promoter. It wasn’t just any paint job on it, but it was a great painting of Marshall Rones himself. Now it was time to get back into the show. At one point Damien Fogiolino told the crowd that this would be the one time that they would play a cover song. For a band that puts a heavy spin on the pop-punk genre, choosing the Harry Styles song “Watermelon Sugar” is an eyebrow raising moment. By taking it in their own direction and putting a little bit of Felicity magic in it, you wouldn’t realize that it was a cover, and everyone was rocking out to it.

As Fogiolino took a quick step off stage, guitarist Andrew Raier let the crowd know that this would be the first time in five years that Fogiolino would play guitar. With that he rejoined his band mates with his black Fender acoustic guitar. With that they played “You Got This”. The combination of everyone’s voices, and the content of the song made this one of those unforgettable moments that every really good concert seems to have. Another moment that great shows seem to have is that song that all the fans just seem to know and sing-along to and “Wish You Weren’t Here” was just that song. It seemed as though this was something that everyone just had to hear judging by the excitement and seemingly everyone knowing all the lyrics.

The final tracks that they played off of Dear Universe were “Lonely Nights”, “C’est La Vie”, and “The Weather”. With all the song of their debut album played for their fans, it was time to finish off the night with some of their older songs. They dipped into their most recent EP Old Habits and played “Weekend Worrier” which did nothing but keep the energy level at roof level. For the final song of the night, they went even further back and absolutely killed it on “Burn The World” off of Brace Yourself.

If this was your first time at a Felicity show, you had a chance to catch an up-and-coming band that is really hitting its stride. While there are plenty of pop punk bands out there, the hard rock edge that they put into all their music separates the from the pack. The bond they seemingly have with their fans just makes a show like tonight’s almost a family affair. With the debut of their album Dear Universe , between the performances of all the songs and the quality of them this effort should place them on the squarely on the map of bands  that aren’t just great up and comers, but just great period.

Felicity:

The Abbey: