Jonny Brown Shoes - Bootle Street Circus @ Late Room - 31.1.07

Jonny Brown shoes was recently named as one of the great modern troubadours in Designer Magazine alongside Scott Matthews, Jamie T and Jack Penate. It was testament to the buzz around the singer songwriter and that the article was written by one of our scribes in London and not his own home town of Manchester shows that this goes above and beyond some incestuous backslapping, the sort of something special that traverses cities.

While his day job in the Children has seen Jonny support the likes of Paul Weller at the Manchester Apollo and play a slot at Leeds Festival, this is his first time on stage as a solo artiste with a live band. Previous gigs have seen him batter an acoustic into submission and this time he's joined by a drum & bass rhythm section to add to the onslaught.

Looking every inch an iconic frontman of Strummer-esque proportions the likes of "Biggest Shoe" and "Snakes And Ladders" have a gutsy driven punk spirit. A couple of slower blues influenced tracks pad things out a little and show a songwriter of depth rather than just another prole for the masses, but it's the closing track "I Stole The Sun" which seems to go on for over 5 minutes and still leaves us wanting more.

It's only the start for Jonny Brown Shoes, but you get the feeling that by the end of the year his solo career may start eclipsing his main band

Alex McCann
Photograph: Paul Adshead - www.invideo.co.uk

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