Sleater-Kinney Concert Review Archive / 2001-2006

These pictures were taken by Darius Krasauskas and submitted by Luisa Weiner.

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DR Randall has a set of pictures from Italy available here.

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Xavier Lages was lucky enough to get a setlist from Carrie, so he sent us a copy.

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Julia Parnaby also has a couple of pictures she shot available here.

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By Julia Parnaby

Last night’s show was utterly superb! a million times more fun than Wednesday night which I’d enjoyed a lot, but not loved like I did last night. It may have been that circumstances conspired to put us in better frames of mind, or it may just be that Sleater-Kinney played one of the shows of their lives, I don’t know. Whatever.

We arrived around 7.45 and positioned ourselves in a much better central part of the hall, and suddenly everything seemed better, clearer sound, better view, and on the raised part of the floor rather than stuck behind it. We missed the first band but arrived in time for the Fiery Furnaces (?) who were just great - like 3 bands trying to fight their way out to see who’d win. They were like an odd mix of Patti Smith (the singer was the spit of her in her younger days), the Coral in terms of the mad noodly keyboard sea shanty melodies, the Make-Up for the attitude and look and Led Zep for the lead guitarists endless riffing. The last song “My Dog Was Lost, But Now He’s Found” was genius. Excellent, I’ll be looking out for them from now on.
Scout Niblett on the other hand just wasn’t my cup of tea. I enjoyed the screaming and random banging on the cymbals but the rest I’m afraid left me pretty cold, though I did enjoy her version of Althea and Donna’s Uptown Top Ranking too. But that manky wig she was wearing… ugh!

Finally the lights were dimmed for SK and the crowd started screaming and then… nothing happened. The dj eventually stuck another record on and finally they appeared. It was clear from the beginning that this was going to be something special - Corin and Carrie were chatty like mad after Wednesday’s quietness, and the talk ranged from the rock n roll chic of having a baby and how much sweat had expired the night before and would or wouldn’t flow then. The outfits too were slinkier - Carrie - jeans and a black t-shirt with a tie printed on it - kind of like on the One Beat promo sticker but with geometric black lines; Janet trousers (I think), silver adidas trainers and an astounding pink flowery top with fur trim on the shoulders and a kind of black silky diagonal sash with a bow on the end across the front; Corin a black 3 tier rah rah dress with patterned trim down one side.

The set list seemed way more mixed - still lots of One Beat, but highlights for me included Entertained/ment/whatever; Little Mouth, Little Babies, Get Up, Funeral Song and Ironclad. The encore too was fabulous - Promised Land, The Drama You’ve Been Craving, Words and Guitar and the extended jam into Dig Me Out. The atmosphere was, if anything, hotter and sweatier than the previous night - Carrie said she didn’t plan to sweat so much last night but I’d lay money on any bet that she did! She and Carrie were both jumping and dancing and kicking and posing so much, Janet is the most astounding musician I think I’ve ever seen - she seemed to have hurt her thumb but you would never have guessed from how hard she played, and I was mesmerised by her ability to drum and sing and play harmonica with such intensity.

Truthfully, they were fantastic. I’m hoping they’ll be back here really soon because I think that just may have been one of the gigs of my life. If anyone on here knows them personally then please say thank you so much - you made a 34 year old English woman happier than she thought she could be!

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Lucy sent in this terrific set of photos:

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By Julia Parnaby

Finally, after a long 4 year wait, I got to see the ladies again. Let me start by saying that the Mean Fiddler (Astoria 2 as most of us know it) is a stinker of a venue. Muddy sound, cramped space but worst of all a ridicuolous raised t-shaped platfrom right in front of the stage making the front of the crowd a good 4 inches taller than everyone else. Whoever came up with that must have been a genius. Still, Sleater-Kinney rocked long and hard in the sweatiest, wettest show I think I’ve ever been to. By about the third song we were drenched and
by the time I left my clothes were sopping wet through as if I’d got into the shower fully clothed. Carrie explained that they neeeded to take breaks between songs as they were just so hot which of course led to the inevitable gags!

This was the biggest SK UK gig I’ve been to, but far from being fly by night newcomers the whole crowd seemed totally dedicated and screamed along with every song. It was a One Beat heavy set - I think they played everything but The Remainder, Prisstina and Funeral Song (shame). AHOTBO and YNRNRF made an appearance as did Call the Doctor, The End of You, Dig Me Out, One More Hour, Words and Guitar plus the two new songs Giraffe and Entertainment (or whatever it’s called). Entertainment was especially striking - seeming largely a solo turn from Carrie who played her guitar one-handed whilst singing and pointing and gesturing like mad. If anyone has a proper set list I’d like to see it as I’m useless at remembering things like that.

Janet was her usual astonishing self throughout dressed all in black and aided slightly by a huge industrial sized fan right next to her drumkit (I doubt it made much difference in that heat). Her drum solo in Hollywood Ending was great! Carrie was in trainers, jeans and a dark grey-green (I think) t-shirt, Corin in a black and white ruffled dress (though I could barely see her from where I was standing). She seemed to be doing lots of flirtatious eye-rolling and shimmying from what I could see, plus a little of that famous head shake…

It’s really a shame that for me the venue spoiled the show quite a lot. I’m planning to arrive earlier tonight to try to get a better view, maybe even stand on Corin’s side of the hall for the first time….

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Brett Wells sent in this glorious picture of Corin Tucker:

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By CrosbysLeftEar (via Sleater-Kinney.Net)

Righty ho, heres my review of last nights show in Brighton. I’m rubbish at remembering song titles so this review will have a distinct shortage of them.

The Old Market is a pretty good venue. Roughly 300 capacity I think with wooden beems in the roof and a really nice sound and shape to the room.

Klang & Electralane were both ok but neither was really my cup of tea and I found both a bit unengaging. This means I can spend a bit more time in the pub tonight which is good S-K have developed a few roadies since I last saw them although they didn’t seem to happy with it and set up a lot of their gear themselves as usual.

S-K started the show with 3 tracks from One Beat, the 2nd of which was ‘Oh’. These songs were all amazing and better then they sound on the record which is impressive in itself. It was obvious that all 3 ladies were up for the gig and there was movement and banter from the start.

The next track they played was a new song and it was just draw droppingly good. Everyone I talked to, even some unconvinced S-K fans said that this was the moment when the gig really came alive for them. A stunning track
which sounds like a development of the material on ‘One Beat’. They played one other new song later in the set which maintained the standard of the first new song. I think we can all start looking forward to the new album now.

The rest of the set consisted of a pretty good mix of stuff from the previous 5 albums including ‘I wanna be your Joey Ramone’ and ‘Stay where you are’ from ‘Call the docter’. I think they managed to play pretty much every track I wanted to here especially ‘Turn it on’ & ‘Words and Guitar’ from ‘Dig Me Out’. The place erupted for ‘Words & Guitar’.

Corin and Carrie were both really chatty all the way through. We got a few jokes and some tour stories. Apparently Corin had called the Norwegians Germans at there previous show. They wern’t impressed.

After a short break they returned for probably the best encore I have ever seen. On request they played ‘Your No rock’n'roll fun’ but I think they would have played it anyway. They then played ‘One More hour’ which morphed
after an extended jam into ‘Dig Me Out’. The way they blended the two songs together was amazing and proved that they have really developed as a band.

In the three years since the last time I saw them I had forgotten how good they actually were. I remembered they were amazing but had forgotten why. Suffice to say thi sshow reminded me of everything. Really looking forward to tonight now.

If anyone with a better memory could post a set list it would much appreciated.
Any mistakes are mine. Apologies if this is all wrong, it was a bit of a blur.
Also I hope the crowd dances a bit more consistently in London, cant believe people can stand still at an S-K gig.

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By Bjornar Aarnes (via Words and Guitar)

Last night I saw Sleater-kinney live for the first time, and I said hello to Carrie.

Here’s what happened:

Oya festival takes place in a park by the shoreline, in walking distance from downtown Oslo. It’s a two-day happening with (mostly) independent music, and Sleater-kinney went on stage at 4.30 on day 2. I arrived with four friends from work, two of which had never heard Sleater-kinney before, just as Mogwai entered the stage. We relaxed a while in the grass; weather was hot, the park was crowded, and the beer was cold. After Magwai had finished, we quickly moved towards the stage. The girls were tuning their instruments, Carrie to the left, wearing a red t-shirt and jeans, and Corin to the right, dressed in a grey skirt and an offwhite t-shirt.

I was too exited to remember to make a note of the first song they played, but I think is was ‘My Stuff’. They continued with ‘Taste test’ and ‘ End of You’. One of my friends shouted out “Welcome to Oslo!”, to which Carrie politely replied “Thank you” and added, in Norwegian, “Tusen takk”. They played ‘Combat rock’, followed by ‘O2′ and a new song (Giraffe). In the beginning of ‘Step Aside’, something happened to Carrie’s equipment. She had to change guitar, and Corin and Janet did a tremendous job finishing ‘Step Aside’ by themselves. The crowd backed them up immediately, clapping and screaming like crazy. ‘One beat’ was next, and then another new song (Don’t drag me down, I’m not falling). Corin said “Two more songs”, and somebody shouted for ‘Words and Guitar’. They played an extended version, with a jamming session at the end, and quickly moved over to ‘Dig me out’. Yeah Yeah Yeahs would play the same stage a couple of hours later, and meanwhile we grabbed some pizza and relaxed in the sun. We were all sweaty and happy; and the two girls who had never heard them before were very impressed and just died to see them again, doing a full 90-minute set. We arraived a little bit late for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

The crowd was somewhat bigger than when Sleater-kinney had performed, but maybe not quite as enthusiastic. We found a spot in the background, to the left of the main area, and had only stood there for a couple of minuted when one of my friends asked me to turn around and look at the short-haired girl with the tatoo on her right arm just five feet to the left of me. In a pause between two tunes I went up to her and said “Carrie Brownstein?”. I shook her and and said I was a big fan of Sleater-kinney. She looked pleased, but didn’t say too much; she seemed very shy and very polite, and I didn’t want to act like an obcessive fan so I just said I was so glad to see them play in Norway. She took off shortly after.

A couple of people came up to me last night and asked where I had aquired the ‘One beat’ t-shirt I wore. And at the record stand the salesman told me they were sold out of ‘One beat’ and ‘Dig me out’ CDs.

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