Messed!Up
Cool is inherently subjective, but it would be hard to find a person on the planet who would fit the description better than Blood Red Shoes guitarist and frontwoman Laura-Mary Carter. If Steven is the chatty, fun, and extrovert chap of the band, Laura-Mary constitutes the mysterious half who’s being that certain type of arty rock’n’roll star the band need to be in balance. Together, they form an incredibly energetic force on stage that has attracted a never-ending growing fanbase.
There are very few bands I happened to discover when they were new in the scene, only had a few singles out, and yet had to release their debut album. It basically comes down to two bands – White Lies which I discovered at the Reading Festival 2008 and last night’s 20-year celebrating garage rock heroes Blood Red Shoes.
I first ran into Blood Red Shoes by chance when I was working as stage manager at the Carlings stage at the Reading Festival in 2007 and this young two-piece turned up with a drummer having a larger-than-life attitude telling me that they would be the next big band coming out of the UK. Little did I know that he, Steven Ansell, was right to some part because Blood Red Shoes have achieved what most bands would dream about: to tour the world and to live off their music ever since. Last year, they celebrated 20 years since their first gig, and it’s hard to understand that they soon also will celebrate 20 years since the release of their magic debut album Box of Secrets which started their journey to stardom.
The gig at Molotow – the band’s 12th Molotow gig according to Steven – was sold out within a week which tells us quite much about Blood Red Shoes’ popularity and their special bond with the Hamburg fans. A bustling Molotow house was quite full at 8 pm already with perhaps just enough space to move across the room without being smashed in between people, and the support band Wasting Pig (sorry, I hung out in the bar downstairs most of the time) got the chance to play in front of a full house of people eagerly waiting for the arrival of Laura-Mary and Steven.
A few minutes after nine Laura-Mary and Steven entered the stage and launched into a set that spanned their impressive two-decade discography but a bit skewed towards older songs, and for someone being a long-time fan, that’s what I wanted. Apparently, it’s their first gig of the year. For a band that tours relentlessly, they’re behind their hundred-gigs-a-year schedule but even rock stars need a break.
Over the course of 70 minutes, there’s a satisfying blend of classic tracks which the well-initiated audience sings every line of. Their super hit “It’s Getting Boring By The Sea” from their debut album Box of Secrets, a true fan favorite, turned up already as the third song of the night and then it continued with classics like “Say Something, Say Anything”, “This Is Not For You”, “I Wish I Was Someone Better”, and my favorite “Doesn’t Matter Much”. Epic! And there’s a very clear line between their new and old material.
The first four records have a very specific garage rock sound – high-paced and hard-hitting garage punk songs with less focus on the lyrics. However, the unusually long break after their self-titled fourth album changed their sound. Their fifth album Get Tragic slowed things down quite much, left their garage sound behind, and out came amazing rock songs driven by lyrical content and loads of electronic layers. Many bands can’t make that shift but for Blood Red Shoes it happened at the right time, and Laura-Mary finally got the chance to prove that she’s a great rock vocalist. Tonight, even if I’m a huge fan of their garage rock sound, their best songs are the newer ones – “Elijah” and “God Complex” are just brilliant live. Sure, the audience wants moshing and they get to do that in songs such as “An Animal” and “Je me perds”, but it’s in the newer songs the band demonstrate how they matured and turned into a rock band. It’s like seeing those few child actors making the shift to adulthood and still being accepted by the industry. Very few bands in the music industry can pull that off.
It’s a great mix of music from two decades of record releases and when they play their last song “Colours Fade” it feels like we got served a perfect amount of food on the plate for the evening.
This was my tenth Blood Red Shoes gig since that show at the Reading Festival in 2007, and I really look forward to another two decades of rock music coming out of their box of secrets. Yes, I definitely see myself as a really big fan. Come back to Hamburg soon!
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Photographer: Julia Schwendner
