Saturday, September 22, 2007

Blood Red Shoes / The Ghost Of A Thousand Birmingham Bar Academy Wednesday 19th September 2007

In a break with gig going tradition, and after the shockingly bad pints of Grolsch (which tasted like someone had jizzed in it) and Blackthorn (which someone had jizzed in) on Tuesday night (oh what the hell...who needs a liver?) I decided to demolish the small bottles of 'red' wine that the Bar Academy has had sitting there gathering dust for months. £2.90 each they may be, but at least they don't taste of jizz...
This has bugger all to do with the music but it does once again raise the question of why some venues find it so bloody hard to serve fairly priced beverages that don't taste of jizz. There. That's got that off my chest, now if only I could find a way to get the taste out of my mouth. One taste I don't need to get out of my mouth (seamless eh? chuffing seamless) is that of hardcore Brightonians The Ghost of a Thousand. I'm fairly sure that most of the assembled teens waiting for Blood Red Shoes weren't expecting a fist full of Gallows up their rectums, but that's pretty much what they got (minus the actual fists up actual rectums). As I've written before, and quite how it's happened, I find myself liking hardcore punk more and more. Perhaps 'cos I'm changing from a slightly angry young man to a totally pissed off old bastard. But there's something about pounding drums, driving guitars and some bloke screaming out his vital organs that just makes me feel good. TGOAT, whilst less scary than Gallows, still get the old blood pumping and lead singer Tom spilt more sweat than a fat man crossing the road in Vegas (and that's a lot of sweat).

Headliners Blood Red Shoes are destined for great things. Ignore the lazy 'reverse White Stripes' comments, BRS are more rrrrrrriot girl meets cute boy next door...they fall in love, spend nights eating chips on Brighton Pier and drinking luke warm Asti Spumanti in the rain whilst plotting their first big stadium show. Or something like that. They're a ball swellingly cute couple. Something for the boys (and boy, were there a few of them there at the front professing undying love for lead shoe Laura) and girls (in the form of the slightly angelic looking Steven). Yes I know looks shouldn't matter, but in this fickle world of 'pop' it still does. It helps no end that the music - a large gob of punk, a dash of indie and a hint of rock - is ace too. It's Getting Boring By The Sea (complete with Guns N' Roses style guitar noise that kicks off Paradise City and naggingly catchy upwards inflection at the end of every line of every verse) must be up there as a possible Hearing Aid Single of the Year (I keep inventing these awards, have you noticed?). Judging by the sizeable crowd, the furious moshing and a stash of instantly memorable tunes these Shoes (I'll warn you now...this is going to hurt) are set to run and run (told you...sometimes I just can't help ending reviews with piss poor Metro News / NME style endings...think of it as some form of ironic comment on the state of the mainstream media...or just me being an annoying tosser).

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