French and English (and one Romanian, as far I know of….) Danced Together

1. Small Town Boys

It’s almost 8:30 and the sound engineers are done with the sound check…. The lights turn off, the music stops and the four lads from Good Shoes get on stage (yes, I was impressed by this, because 8:30 was the time on the ticket and that’s when they got on stage). They started right away, after a ‘Bonsoir’. Good performance, they sound just as good live as on the record, the drummer is really good, the bassist gave a guy from the public some of his beer (the guy had asked him for a sip), the bassist blushed and smiled shyly when someone from the audience smiled at him, the lead singer said a few ‘merci beaucoup’ and that was it. They were great but they were rather unknown to the audience (we were about 5 people in the crowd dancing) and thus the audience was rather cold with them and they were cold with the audience. Nothing more, nothing less….

2. The World Is A Mess, But Alan’s Dance Moves Are Perfect

At about 9:30, the impatient crowd was satisfied: The Rakes got on stage. And the chaos began: moshpitting…as always. Body heat, the smell of the sweat, me lacking both air and water. But it was great. Wearing a white “Irish Writer’s” tee, dancing maniacally like Curtis, throwing ‘philosophical’ phrases like ‘Slow songs are nice’, Alan Donohoe had a perfect performance and left us all wanting for more. They really interacted with the public, making little jokes like “I’m not gonna do the jukebox for you, if you wanna listen to Beatles buy an album and listen to them in yr bedroom” ( someone was probably requesting a song), constantly giving beer to the audience and doing impersonations of Michael Jackson and Bowie. And hey, they may not be a groundbreaking band, but they have a huge energy and they sound f*cking amazing live. So, after a great last song, “The World Was A Mess, But His Hair Was Perfect”, and one hour and a half of moshpitting, I got meself a huge Cola in order to get some liquid in my body and got on the metro back to The dorm….

10 Brilliant Messages....

The four lads from London are back with 10 fresh songs...just like the title of teh album says it "10 New Messages"....Remember the debut, right? It sounds brilliant...It's clearly the legacy of Joy Division(the whipping bass, the dazzling guitars) but it's just so perfectly done and Alan's lyrics are so grounded in society and they embrasse their influences so gracefully, that you'd really have no excuse for not loving them....The new album has the same effect...just that now, the blatant JD influences aren't so blatant....the pop-post-punk wonders are still there, setting off with the brilliantly named "The World Was a Mess But His Hair Was Perfect", getting through the all-so-dancey/fuck-the-world "We Danced Together" and the the-oh-so-perfect-song-to-obsess-about-for-the-rest-of-yr-life "When Tom Cruise Cries" and wrapping with the beautifull "Leave The City And Come Home"...Honestly, I don't think i could've asked for more: a great debut and a lack of what's known as SAS...Now, I must make sure they sound fab live...

The Rakes - When Tom Cruise Cries.mp3