Live Review: Ruby Boots, The Ghost Hotel, Flooded Palace, The Little Lord Street Band

Showcasing soft guitar work and pleasant two-part harmonies, The Little Lord Street Band proved there couldn’t have been any better choice to start this night at the Rosemount Hotel. They delivered a convincing cover of The Cars’ Just What I Needed with their rock’n’roll-influenced folk rock. Their overall sound was fantastic and they have an enthusiastic onstage presence.

Producing a Manic Street Preachers vibe, Flooded Palace caught the attention of the crowd with their strident upbeat indie rock sound. Announcing that “these cunts write good songs” with reference to the fellow bands playing, frontman Todd Pickett hinted at possessing a “poetic” tongue.

An eerie-sounding name for a pleasant sounding band, The Ghost Hotel evoked good feelings with their beautiful selection of melodies. The five-piece opened with a smooth tune featuring sliding riffs and soft tom beats and their overall performance featured an array of warm-hearted tracks fuelled by ‘70s-inspired soft rock with hints of country elements.

While Ruby Boots is obviously talented and driven, she needs to seriously reevaluate her stage presentation. She came across as rude, abrasive and insulting and as a result the fiery country singer alienated much of the crowd. Halfway through her set, Boots yelled repeatedly for any punters talking amongst themselves to “shut the fuck up”, so she could talk about Nepal, that those “who won’t shut up, don’t care about Nepal” and $2 off each item of her merchandise would go towards helping victims of the earthquake. It’s quite possible that deep down she believed she was doing something noble, but the way she went about it was distasteful and she lost a lot of her audience after that. You could see the vast majority of the crowd felt embarrassed for her and couldn’t wait to leave the room, or had already left. After her last song she got up on the bar so she could continue singing while the crew packed up the equipment on stage. She then told the remaining patrons that they “should be quiet, or fuck off” even though the concert had already ended. This was one of the most entertaining shows this scribe ever seen, purely because of how cringe-worthy it was. There were parts of the performance that were brilliant, including the songwriting, Boots’ edgy voice, the unity of the band and the harmonies, but all were completely overshadowed by her attitude.