Thursday, March 22, 2018

Shoes - 5/10/14, Bell House, Brooklyn, NY

As the band readily admits between songs, "We don't get out much."  Indeed, It’s not every day that Shoes play out, even in robust markets like New York.  Much to their credit, Zion, IL's power pop mavens did trek due east for the first annual Brooklyn Power Pop Festival in the spring of 2014.  In addition to the billing of the gig, they had a good enough excuse to spread their wings as just two years prior they dropped their tenth, and much belated studio album, Ignition.

For the uninitiated, Shoes were leading lights in the power pop vanguard during the late '70s/'80s, bringing definition and prominence to their chosen genre.  Any whiff of the brothers Murphy (Jeff & John), Gary Klebe, (and for this performance) Johnny Richardson on percussion, in the twenty-first century is nothing short of an event for Shoes obsessives.  Granted, their pipes aren't quite as pristine as they were three decades earlier, but their overarching approach at this 2014 concert was just as nimble and airtight as their halcyon days.  In addition to a devastating volley of classics like "Burned Out Love," "Too Late," "Tomorrow Night," and "Love is Like a Bullet," they excavate some particularly deep tracks from Stolen Wishes, and all the way back to Black Vinyl Shoes.  You'll hear plenty of newer cuts too, on this superb audience recording that can often boarder on a soundboard tape.  I've made this available in MP3 and FLAC below. 

01. Intro
02. Head vs Heart
03. Hangin' Around With You
04. When It Hits
05. Your Devotion
06. Say It Like You Mean It
07. Mayday
08. Too Late
09. Don't Do This To Me
10. Love Is Like A Bullet
11. Curiosity
12. Boys Don't Lie/Do You Wanna Get Lucky?
13. She'll Disappear
14. Your Very Eyes
15. In My Arms Again
16. Burned Out Love
17. Torn In Two
18. The Summer Rain
19. Heaven Help Me
20. Feel The Way That I Do
21. Tomorrow Night
22. Hot Mess
23. She Satisfies
24. Capital Gaina
25. encore break
26. I Don't Miss You
27. Hate To Run

MP3 (320)  or   FLAC

5 comments:

. said...

Thank you so much for this! A truly great "little" band - little in the sense that they never made the cover of Rolling Stone, and are much better for it. Somebody induct them into the Hall of Fame - preferably on the same night as the dB's!

Kouzie said...

Thanks! Saw them play once at an indoor sand volleyball bar. Weird, but they were great (for the 15 of us there to see them).

Jim H. said...

thanks much! i saw them in Los Angeles in the late 90s, i believe at the Troubadour, either at a Poptopia show or International Pop Overthrow event, can't remember which!!! Loved the fellas since the later 70s!!!

Mark said...

Now THIS is is real find for me. I attended this show, seeing opening acts The Berraracudas (featuring Adrian Berrara), and Paul Collins, before seeing Shoes. The Berraracudas were a great surprise, Paul Collins played like he owned power pop, and Shoes were real pros, friendly on stage, and grateful to the packed Bell House crowd. Trouser Press editor Ira Robbins introduced the band, and long-time music critic (and former Stereo Review staffer Steve Simels were in the crowd. A gteat night.

binkerbo said...

Very cool! I don't get around to the blogs as much as I used to so I'm glad I stopped by. Thank you for posting this.