Live

Neils Children, Tera:Tora, Blood Red Shoes

Paul Deacon 00/00/0000

“It's not working” ok, “I'm so destructive” of course you are “Your never on time” nothing new there then, not my words, but words from the impressive duo Blood Red Shoes. Words so negative you instantly forget the obvious boy girl comparisons, words so negative you find yourself singing along anyway addicted to their melodies, your head is bobbing along to the excellent aggressive yet bouncy drumming of Steven coupled with the guitar work of Laura-Mary, these two are making a racket and are having fun, and so were we.

I hate to say it but next act Tera:Tora. were plagued with sound problems from the start, the piercing high end guitar work was too loud for these ears, the vocals were too low to pick out any tunes, but they played on oblivious, providing us with some punk experimental funk, who knows, they were definitely trying hard:. The Rapture sprang to mind but that's a lazy comparison for which I can only apologise. With a bit of refining and more songs like the last of their set, then soon we could all be dancing like they want us to.

Neils Children were the headliners tonight. They lost a bassist found a bassist, took Christmas off and seem all the better for it. Starting with a few new ones, which took me by pleasant surprise, with funky bass lines, no echo or delay! Sounding tighter and more together, the new songs made you want to dance, which is something new, for them. The set was mixture, the old: pretty much the same as before, the new: very impressive. All in all Neils Children looked relaxed, happy and confident with their new line up and songs, most importantly they looked like they were enjoying it again, a corner has been turned perhaps? Does wider success beckon? It's down to them.