Despite the declining popularity of Blood Red Shoes in Prague, a fine concert
They have already played in larger and more prestigious venues, but they didn’t put Blood Red Shoes to shame even in the more modest Futurum Music Bar. The standing area was filled just right and the band played so that now and then the soles of the attendees left the floor. They were preceded by The Atavists from Hradec Králové.
Live: Blood Red Shoes
place: Futurum Music Bar, Prague
Support, support: Atavists
date: August 5, 2022
set list: Elijah, Bangsar, I Am Not You, Howl, Light It Up, Cold, It’s Getting Boring By The Sea, Red River, Je Me Perds, Animal, Black Distraction, Kill Me, Sucker, Eye To Eye, God Complex, Morbid Fascination , I wish I was someone better, Colors fade
Photogallery
© Martin Bambušek / musicserver.cz
“I’d like to thank our friends from I Love You Honey Bunny for organizing this concert! We just had some time off between partying and mentioned that we’d like to do a solo show in Prague. ‘It’s going to be good, it’s going to be nice, ‘ we thought, but you’re bloody amazing!” drummer Steven Ansell announced from the Futurum Music Bar stage as the seventy-five minute show drew to a close. What preceded it? And wasn’t he exaggerating a bit? Let’s start from the end. Yes, he was exaggerating a bit. That evening was not so miraculous, and if you have seen Blood Red Shoes in the Czech Republic before, and ideally more than once, you will probably agree that it was a good, but by no means exceptional performance. The central duo was reinforced by two accompanying musicians at the beginning and end. Without them, especially the news from the album “Ghosts On Tape” could not sound as they were recorded in the studio. But they were the ones that got underfoot here and there.
© Martin Bambušek / musicserver.cz
If we develop the idea from the review, then we can show how few ideas the new songs have, for example “I Am Not You”, which was heard as the first of them. The drummer sings the words of a short and punchy chorus that sticks in your head, but as the song goes on, you realize that nothing else happens in it. Hmm, that’s a strong start, that riff is pretty cool, you say again on “Murder Me”, one of the latest singles. And then the song needs that it offers no other idea and that it ends as it begins. In short, it doesn’t work very well. Unfortunately.
But then Blood Red Shoes will offer something older. The continuously changing setlist of the current tour includes, for example, the rarely played piece “Cold”, Scott Pilgrim’s famous single “It’s Getting Boring By The Sea” or “Je me perds”, which the drummer recently identified as his favorite song to play live, and there it is again. The band is on, the music is right kicks and the singer and guitarist Laura Mary Carter seems to be the only one in the hall who doesn’t care much about everything around her despite the general merriment.
© Martin Bambušek / musicserver.cz
But that’s how she always is, and what she can’t tell about herself while playing or during breaks between songs, she makes up for it with emotions in her singing. But when the concert comes close to the quote mentioned in the introduction, she ends up laughing too. Perhaps the fact that her partner behind the drums can finally be heard a little while singing together is also to blame. For a good half of the set, his voice was quite lost in the songs they sing together, and the guitarist signaled the sound engineer in vain to turn the volume to the right. Once the band returns for the encore and sings along with the audience that they wish they were someone better than they are right now, it’s clear that it’s all over. He completes his biggest hit with the closing “Colour Fade” and then mentally disappears from the stage for good. A pleasant evening and one unanswered question will remain in the memory of the fans: What will happen next? After all, even the noisepunks themselves must have imagined the period after the release of their sixth record in a different way than playing in Europe in smaller clubs than when they released the third. So back to reality and let’s ask with them: Does this have a future?