The Beat Surrender

It seems that my day is destined to be linked to Brighton. I’ve sat through and watched a fairly decent display from Leeds against their football team, but somehow despite periods of dominance we’ve only managed a goalless draw. Now three hours after that disappointment I’m heading to The Cockpit to see one of the towns (is it a town or a city?) best bands play live for the first time.

Things don’t get off to the best of starts, we hadn’t been able to sort guest list places in advance unfortunately so we try and blag our way in using the support band Johnny Foreigner, this might have worked nine times out of ten…except they’d cancelled their support slot due to illness unbeknown to us!

So with a slight sense of embarrassment and a slightly emptier wallet we head into the gig that now doesn’t feature the one support act I was looking forward to. We needn’t have worried though because Clockwork come on stage and blow away a Leeds crowd that isn’t expecting anything and gets an absolute treat.

The songs themself are very good without ever reaching the heights of exceptional. That superlative is saved for front-man James Treadell as well singing his heart out he plays guitar, synth and piano as well as being the bands lyric writer. Onstage he’s an intense, energetic performer who looks like he is putting himself through the emotional wringer for our benefit, don’t worry James tonight we are more than grateful for that, thank you.

With Johnny Foreigner now not on the bill it’s headliners Blood Red Shoes who we are waiting for next, I comment to my mate who has come with me that “the pressures off them now really, we’ve had our moneys worth already with the support band”. You’re right it could only be a Yorkshireman that thinks like that, but think like that I do and Clockwork have already made the gig worthwhile for me.

To be fair to them Blood Red Shoes do an equally good job of giving us tight arses value for money. From the moment Steven Ansell strides onstage, clambers behind the drum kit and raises his sticks in the air in a gladitorial fashion ready to kick things off they rarely disappoint. In fact it’s only really the first track of a deserved encore that lowers things a little, when they play one of their earlier songs that they admit they haven’t played for a while. It sounds a little rusty and out of sync with the quality of whats gone before, but this of course is only a minor gripe.

Attention is divided pretty much equally between the two members, Ansell is the one who seeks attention and over dramatises his drum actions, it adds to the show and he is an integral part of their garage/punk/pop sound, the star of the band though is undoubtedly Laura Mary-Carter.

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