Blood Red Shoes @ The Hive
With their last songs BRS have obviously held something in reserve and prove they have a handful of good tunes.
Playing Rage Against The Machine's Bombtrack in its entirety is not so much an introduction as a call to arms. It's all the more embarrassing then when a technical glitch causes a ten-minute delay, culminating with a vacuous indie-scenester telling a 'joke' about penguins. He's quickly boo-ed off, even eliciting a Noel Gallagher-inspired "Die of Aids!" Tough crowd, though thankfully order is soon resumed and Blood Red Shoes quickly dispatch It's Getting Boring Beside The Sea and You Bring Me Down to everyone's satisfaction. The mid-set songs follow a pretty rigid grunge-pop blueprint, compounded by, oh surprise, the sound, which turns to mush upon drummer Steven Ansell's various cymbal-bashing torrents. With their last songs BRS have obviously held something in reserve and prove they have a handful of good tunes. It's maybe not enough for the brilliant debut being promised, but warrants some future investigation. And better sound techs. [Darren Carle]