Blood Red Shoes live at The Cockpit, Leeds, 12 May 2012

Last Saturday Leeds welcomed Blood Red Shoes, who played the penultimate set of their current UK tour at the city's Cockpit venue.

Throughout this tour Dublin rockers, The Cast of Cheers, have been supporting BRS and they arrived on stage at 7:40pm, playing a frenetic 30 minute set of songs.

Being a support act can be difficult at times, chances are a good percentage of the audience will be unfamiliar with the songs but the audience seemed to enjoy The Cast of Cheers and I'm sure they picked up a few fans that night.

Then came the wait for the main event as instruments were tuned, sound levels checked and the stage made ready, consisting of, amongst other things, red curtains, a lamp and a tv showing static, mimicking the style of the album cover of In Time To Voices.

Just before 9:00pm the volume of the tv was switched up and Laura-Mary and Steven took to the stage, promptly drowning out the sound of static with the wonderful "It's Getting Boring By The Sea", taken from their first album.

Next up was "Don't Ask" from their second album before they launched into "Cold", the first single from their latest album, from which they would play several tracks.

This included their next single, "Lost Kids", and the titular "In Time To Voices", interspersed with track from their first two albums, amongst which were such gems as "Light It Up", "I Wish I Was Someone Better", "You Bring Me Down" and "Heartsink" to name a few.

After the last song the dynamic duo retired backstage to await the obligatory calls of "Encore!". The pair returned to the stage to play not just one more song but three, ending with the short but sweet "Je Me Perds".

Throughout BRS were certainly on form, despite Laura-Mary suffering from a cold, which I could certainly sympathise with, suffering that week myself also from the same thing.

However, amazingly she still sounded great and her work on guitar was top notch. In fact, one has to wonder at times if these two are superhuman, for if Laura-Mary demonstrated remarkable resiliance by playing and singing with a cold, Steven demonstrated great stamina and lung-capacity by simultaneously laying down some very rapid and heavy drum beats whilst giving a good vocal performance over the course of 17 songs.

At the same time both kept looking into the audience, never becoming lost in their instruments or microphones and all this whilst barely looking like they were breaking a sweat.

A great performance from them both, sounding every bit as good as their studio productions and then some. The acoustics of the venue were spot on and, whilst as loud as one would hope at a live concert, didn't leave an awful persistant ringing in the ears like some venues.

If you ever get the chance to see Blood Red Shoes live you won't be disappointed.

Blood Red Shoes Official Website


The Cast of Cheers Official Website


The Cockpit - Leeds