Little Boots, Leeds Faversham

Whilst you will have heard a hell of a lot about Little Boots, much of it from this site alone, her year so far hasn’t been anywhere near as great as expected. Indeed, of the Tips for 2009, White Lies are the runaway success. Her first tour with a full band, playing in the city that birthed her previous band Dead Disco, Victoria Hesketh (aka Little Boots) has a lot of expectation from this audience. Sadly, it’s not fulfilled.

To be fair to her, tonight’s gig is by no means a bad one. It’s just that it should have provided a lot more. The main grievance held is the length of the gig: she arrives onstage 30 minutes late and plays for even less. For a headline slot, 25 minutes just isn’t enough: it’s shortchanging the audience. All the songs from her EP are played, two new ‘uns and a cover version. That’s it. Whilst the quality of what she plays is of a high standard (it really is a bloody good EP), the maximum capacity crowd should be hearing a lot more of her material, especially considering she has by this stage completed her album. She plays with a backing band, which benefits some songs: ‘Mathematics’ in particular sounds much punchier and benefits from the thicker sound. ‘Meddle’ on the other hand should have been kept in it’s more intimate, solo form as it was on Jools Holland and various clips on Youtube. The much lauded Tenorion is drowned out by the backing band and barely registers despite being prominently at the front of the stage facing the crowd.

Finale ‘Stuck On Repeat’ is a solid finish to the gig, perking the crowd up from the first chord and even inciting a mini mosh pit. Ultimately though, the most memorable things of this gig are the delay and subsequently too short set time and the sexist “YOURESOFITOMGZ” from the pissed up male section of the crowd. If anything, her looks work against her here. I doubt La Roux would suffer from such narrow minded comments, “coz she has weird fackin hair innit”. The gig ends up disappointing but showing enough to suggest this could be rectified in the future. Keep your fingers crossed.