Reprinted from my Donewaiting column, part one for night one
by me, Han Q Duong:
I love Sleater-Kinney.
It’s not a big secret, but I figured I’d get that out of the way in case anyone thought this would be an unbiased review of their recent L.A. shows. I’ve seen them in concert countless times and in my off time I maintain the Sleater-Kinney Concert Review Archive, which stockpiles fan reviews and photos. Between reading all the press clippings and moderating the archive, it wouldn’t surprise me if I’ve read more words about the band than anyone on earth aside from the band’s publicist and parents.
If you are somehow unfamiliar with the band… I dunno, go to a record store or something! They are Corin Tucker (guitar/vocals), Carrie Brownstein (guitar/vocals) and Janet Weiss (drums) and they rock me out of my head with disturbing regularity. The rest you can read on Allmusic.
The band’s currently inbetween records, so this tour was primarily set up to test out new material and keep the band warm before they head to studio later this year. I was doubly excited about the shows because the opening band was another favorite, Quasi. It also meant that Weiss was pulling a double-shift with Quasi and S-K, essentially performing as her own opening act.
The first night actually started with Davies vs. Dresch playing a short set of six songs before anything else. This was only their 4th show or so, and certainly the first before a crowd this of this size, but don’t confuse them for amateurs. This is the latest band for Donna Dresch, who’s work with Team Dresch is considered one of the landmarks of the Riot Grrl movement in the early nineties. Kristina Davies shares vocal and guitar duties with Dresch and their guitar interplay is the crux of the band, just as the band name implies.
Quasi followed with a bizarre opening set that saw a lot of improvisation and a freewheeling, jazzy session of fuzzed up pop. Even though Janet Weiss played twice, she didn’t half-ass it while playing with Quasi. Locked in against Sam Coomes and his pinebox coffin keyboard, Weiss’s drumming for Quasi was actually even more impressive than her S-K work. Her style is so much wilder with Quasi, and with the sparer songs she gets to user her drums with more melodic effect. The set was hard to focus on, with Coomes and Weiss playing a lot of musical games inbetween the actual songs, but Quasi’s so good at that stuff that I could watch it all day.
Sleater-Kinney hit the stage at about 11:00pm and played for a little over an hour. The setlist varied wildly across their catalogue, starting off with “The End of You” from The Hot Rock and ending with “Be Yr Mama” from their self-titled debut. Inbetween was a smattering of everything else, including four new songs that are being prepped for the new record. The set was humming right along until a fight broke out during “Oh!,” and the band cut their song short to restore order. It was a necessary stop, but it slowed the momentum a bit.
Lately, the strongest elements of the Sleater-Kinney live show have been the instrumental segues they’ve been using to string together songs. The main set closed with a continuous chain of “Bomp,” “Hollywood Ending” and then finally “Words and Guitar.” Tucker and Brownstein will turn away from the audience and just concentrate on the improv, and for three or four minutes at a time they’ll play like there’s no one else in the room. There’s something beautifully intimate about it all, and when they hit it right, the segues crescendo right into the starting chords of the next song. They weren’t dead on with it tonight, and doing three songs in a row seemed to sap the energy out of the audience a bit. The band’s talked about doing a whole set non-stop, and while it would be a sight to see, I think they’d outlast the crowd by a far margin.
Filed under: Reviews