After weeks of heavy rotation of the Jane Fonda albums and word spreading about local duo Bird Shoes the We Broke Free team all arrive at 60 with a feeling of excitement. Bird Shoes call to attention the crowd starting their set with battle cry ‘oi!’ gathering a small dedicated standing crowd whilst people sat look on with intrigue and interest. Within 30 seconds of their set it’s obvious that it won’t be long before the band have a strong following. Bird Shoes are a local duo comprising of Robin Clark on guitar/vocals and James Gordelier on drums/pads who fill the stage with unashamed slacker swagger dancing the line between melodic and noisy perfectly. When you think of Bird Shoes think of all the best bits of Slaves and Sleaford Mods discarding the naff but better still find them online, turn your volume to 11, crack open a cold one and get ready to party; I guarantee they’ll put you in the mood. Inevitably with high octane duo’s it’s easy for them to get samey which began to happen in the latter part of their set. On cue the duo counteract this by playing bass sampled/megaphone sang track ‘Nightmare’ followed by final song ‘Lads’ which started on electronic drum pads before returning to relentless grunge. A stellar 60 Million debut from Bird Shoes who will benefit from future crowds bouncing off their energy and continuing to write songs that widen their scope from just ‘fashionably angry’.
With Have You Ever Seen The Jane Fonda Aerobic VHS? having 2 albums under their belt, the more recent fitting amongst great low-fi pop-punk/indie records the band deserve a bigger crowd than they are welcomed to; surely with a record of that quality it can only be the sun that kept numbers down. Unfortunately, it feels like this takes the 3-piece band off guard with them playing songs back to back only taking a pause to introduce one song all set, this could be due to English not being the Finnish groups first language. The first half of the set is predominately taken from the debut album which is less keyboard driven and due to this HYESTJFAV fall victim to their loud cymbals filling the room drowning out the melody. For some this took away from the pop fun of the Jane Fonda group but for the remaining grungers from Bird Shoes fan base this added an extra dimension. Later HYESTJFAV blast through album two tracks and the album one singles to a satisfied pop and grunge audience as the band settle into their sound levelling out the unwanted earlier peaks. As the We Broke Free preview suggested you’d be mad not to listen to the latest album and with songs as strong as theirs we can and we hope that by the next tour HYESTJFAV will have perfected their live sound bringing the crowd they deserve.