Bikini Kill @ Brooklyn Paramount - Brooklyn
September 7th, 2024: Bikini Kill, Birthday Girl @ Brooklyn Paramount - Brooklyn, NY
Bikini Kill | Photos Courtesy of: Edwina Hay
On Saturday, September 7th, Bikini Kill began their two-night stand at Brooklyn Paramount in Brooklyn, NY. The influential punk band are wrapping up their summer tour and scheduled two nights in New York City at Brooklyn Paramount.
Brooklyn Paramount opened earlier this year, hosting live music in the space for the first time in nearly 50 years. The site is a former movie palace and was a sports venue up until the multi-million dollar renovation by Live Nation.
Starting the evening promptly at 8 PM was Brooklyn band Birthday Girl. The sextet warmed up the all-ages crowd, who mostly filled the main room despite numerous people standing in line to buy merchandise or still arriving at the show. Singer/songwriter Eva Smittle cited the headlining act as an influence and expressed appreciation to the band for adding them to this exciting bill.
Bikini Kill then appeared on stage shortly after 9 PM with Kathleen Hanna starting their set with the powerful lyric, “We’re Bikini Kill, and we want revolution girl style now!” and beginning “Double Dare Ya.” The quartet, also comprised of Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Sara Landeau opened with BK’s earliest material (“Carnival,” “New Radio,” and “Don’t Need You”) before visiting songs from their full-length records, Pussy Whipped and Reject All American. With no new material to promote, the band played everything old to the delight of everyone in attendance. The audience sang along and danced throughout the whole show with members rotating roles on songs. Tobi left the drum kit to sing “Distinct Complicity,” “Hamster Baby,” and “Tell Me So” with Kathi or Sara taking over drum duties and Kathleen moving over to play bass. Their set concluded with ”Suck My Left One,” “Jigsaw Youth” and a one-song encore of “Rebel Girl” which is now a timeless anthem.
Bikini Kill disbanded in 1997 and was a band that I never imagined witnessing live one day, especially as someone who discovered them towards the end of their life. Before beginning, “I Like Fucking,” Kathleen shared that she never wanted to play that song before their breakup but now she finds joy in it. Being in a room where mostly everyone is singing along and enjoying music made by four badass women truly is a joyful experience and I’m extremely grateful for Bikini Kill and that gift.
Birthday Girl
The Hives @ Brooklyn Steel - Brooklyn
October 30th, 2023: The Hives, Olivia Jean @ Brooklyn Steel - Brooklyn, NY
The Hives - Photos Courtesy of: Edwina Hay
The Hives blessed fans with another dozen new songs on The Death of Randy Fitzimmons back on August 11th and kicked off their tour with a sold-out show at Brooklyn Steel in Brooklyn, NY the eve before Halloween (Monday, October 30, 2023). Who is Randy Fitzsimmons? He may or may not exist, but has been credited as discovering and managing The Hives as well as being an unofficial sixth member of the band. With their first new record in over a decade, Fitzsimmons is now dead…or perhaps he is still alive?
The long-running garage rock band recently announced on social media that there would be prizes awarded for costumes for their Brooklyn show plus Washington, D.C. on Halloween. Naturally, there were people dressed up like The Hives, including one person up front who referenced frontman Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist accidentally hitting himself in the face with a microphone during their performance at a festival.
Another garage rock act, Olivia Jean, and her band were selected to open the tour. The four members took the stage promptly at 8 PM and played a solid and fun set for 40 minutes. Olivia Jean and her band seemed truly excited to be on tour with The Hives and engaging with their fans at the tour opening show.
The Hives came on stage about 9:15 PM after Frédéric Chopin’s “Marche Funèbre” played over the speakers and frontman Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist jokingly and accurately declaring, “It is good to have us back!” before the group kicked off their set with the first track of Randy Fitzsimmons, “Bogus Operandi,” and subsequently launching into “Main Offender,” “Walk Idiot Walk,” and “Rigor Mortis Radio.” Almqvist announced that the new album made him feel like a proud parent before the band performed the fifth song from the aforementioned record, “Stick Up.”
All evening, Pelle’s banter was witty and sharp: “I looked at the setlist and you people love this song. You’ve loved it for 20 years!” before he introduced guitarist (and his brother) Nicholas Arson to begin “Hate To Say I Told You So,” from their 2000 sophomore album Veni, Vidi Vicious. “Yeah, we’ve been practicing!” he later noted when expressing how good they sounded. When he announced the last song of their set, people loudly expressed their disappointment and he immediately quipped, “Do we have a customer complaint?” The Hives selected “Countdown to Shutdown,” another single from the new album, as the final song of their set before they left the stage, only to return to us a few moments later. We received a two-song encore of “Come On!” (from 2012’s Lex Hives) and “Tick Tick Boom,” (from The Black and White Album). Before the Swedish gents sent us off into the night, we heard Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better” over the house speakers as the band took a bow to a cheering audience.
I caught my first performance from the Swedish quintet back in 2001 and saw them a few months ago in May at a smaller venue. I can always count on The Hives to deliver an energetic and fun performance and I’m so grateful I got to see them twice in a year after a long hiatus. They’re scheduled to return to NYC again in 2024 to open for Foo Fighters at CitiField and I’m very glad I got to see them in a medium-sized venue before they bring The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons to the home of The New York Mets.
Olivia Jean
CHAI @ Warsaw - Brooklyn
October 6th, 2023: CHAI, Font @ Warsaw - Brooklyn, NY
CHAI - Photos Courtesy of: Edwina Hay
On Friday, October 6th, CHAI’s, “We the CHAI” tour came to Brooklyn, NY for an evening at Warsaw.
The openers for this tour are Austin, TX’s Font, and the five-member act which only formed in 2022 went on promptly at 8 PM. Before the show, I tried to check out their music but could only find one single available on their Bandcamp page, so I was very curious what their full set would be like. The post-punk quintet put on an energetic and fun performance, and the audience seemed to enjoy it.
Chai came on stage at 9:15 PM, dressed in matching pink costumes. Their infectious songs, high energy, and synchronized dance moves had the Brooklyn crowd screaming and dancing along all throughout their extremely enjoyable set. Predictably, their setlist included their single (“PARA PARA”) from their Sub Pop Records debut, CHAI, released last month. They also performed older material such as “E.N.D.,” “N.E.O.,” plus a few moments of a song from one of their influences, Basement Jaxx (“Where’s Your Head At?”). Their joyful set is truly what I needed at the end of a busy week and I felt a small wave of sadness when I realized it was over as most people filed out of Warsaw, while others remained behind to meet the band at the merchandise table.
Font
little image @ Baby's All Right - Brooklyn
August 30th, 2023: little image @ Baby’s All Right - Brooklyn, NY
little image - Photos Courtesy of: Edwina Hay
Horsegirl, Iceage, Water From Your Eyes, and Lifeguard @ Central Park SummerStage - NYC
July 20th 2023: Horsegirl, Iceage, Water From Your Eyes, and Lifeguard @ Central Park SummerStage - New York City
Horsegirl - Photos Courtesy of Edwina Hay
On Thursday, July 20, 2023, Horsegirl, Iceage, Water From Your Eyes, and Lifeguard performed at Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park. All four acts have one thing in common: they’ve all released music on the same record label that’s based in New York City, Matador Records. The show was free to attend, for all ages, and was one of the highlights of their schedule this season.
Chicago’s Lifeguard, who began their tour with Horsegirl tonight, just released a pair of EPs on Matador Records (Crowd Can Talk EP and Dressed in Trenches EP) and kicked off the show at 6 PM. The young band was full of energy and was a great start to this highly anticipated show.
Water From Your Eyes released their Everyone’s Crushed album at the end of May on Matador, and their set featured songs from that release. The duo of Nate Amos and Rachel Brown were joined by an additional guitarist, Al, and seemed to have many fans in the audience who were eager for their early evening set.
Copenhagen’s Iceage went on next at 7:41 PM, and the last performance of theirs I caught was in 2019 in Queens and Central Park’s outdoor stage seemed to fit them well, with many people near the barricade dancing and singing along during their set. Singer Elias Bender Rønnenfelt barely stood still during their performance. Immediately after “High & Hurt,” Elias declared, “We love you, New York.”
Horsegirl, who I last saw in March opening for Unwound, closed the show when their set began just before 9 PM. The second song of their set was brand new, and Penelope mentioned her brother, Isaac Lowenstein, of Lifeguard, while on stage. Before starting their second brand new song, Horsegirl announced they were recently in their hometown of Chicago working on their second album. During “Billy,” Horsegirl brought out the trio of Lifeguard to assist them on the final song of their set.
Throughout the show, a t-shirt gun was used to launch t-shirts into the audience, and was done by a member of a band who wasn’t performing at that moment. For Lifeguard, Nora of Horsegirl shot a t-shirt to a lucky audience member who was near me, proudly whipping it around in the air after catching it. During Water From Your Eyes, Kai of Lifeguard used the gun, in Horsegirl’s performance, Nate of Water From Your Eyes shot shirts into the audience a few times before the show came to an end. The venue also kept fans cool by having their security team occasionally spray water but simultaneously needed more than just one water fountain/bottle refill station located in a somewhat hidden spot, which was a noticeable change compared to last year. Between the strong bill and venue inside one of our city’s most famous public parks, Thursday night was a stellar way to spend a warm July evening in New York City.
Horsegirl
Lifeguard
Water From Your Eyes
Iceage
Unwound @ Irving Plaza - NYC
March 10th 2023: Unwound, Horsegirl @ Irving Plaza - New York, NY
fans at Unwound - Photos Courtesy of Edwina Hay
Olympia, Washington’s Unwound disbanded in 2002. This was around the time I first discovered their music and quickly became one of those bands who I really enjoyed but liked other acts such as Pixies, Bikini Kill, or Murder City Devils where I was either born too late to see them when they were active, or connected with their catalog right as they were disbanding and figured I would never see them live. Twenty years after their final shows, Unwound revealed they were performing again in July 2022. They announced a concert at New York’s Irving Plaza on Friday, March 10, 2023, which quickly sold out, and then two more shows at the same venue were added.
Friday night’s show began promptly at 8 PM with a performance by Horsegirl, the trio from Chicago that relocated to New York City. The group didn’t say much while on stage during their 45-minute set, but Penelope Lowenstein disclosed that they were excited when this show was first announced and long before they were invited to play, that they would have been in the audience with us too. Before performing “Forecast,” Penelope announced it was the first song they ever wrote in her basement at the age of 15. In addition to playing songs from their record Versions of Modern Performance, they also included a Guided By Voices cover in their set (“As We Go Up, We Go Down”).
For their first New York show in two decades, Unwound performed two sets. The first one began at 9:15 PM, followed by a 15-minute intermission, and resumed again at 10:20 PM. Their drummer, Sara Lund, asked before their fourth song how many people were supposed to see them at Bowery Ballroom in 2001 (they were scheduled to play on September 12, 2001), and not many people responded. She quickly modified the question by then asking who was born after 9/11/01 and dedicated their next song to the numerous young fans in attendance who qualified.
Unwound’s vocalist/guitarist Justin Trosper mentioned after intermission it was an honor to be here and when someone yelled out a song that they wanted to hear, he laughed and said they don’t take requests and that everything was pre-planned. He then dedicated the next two songs to their departed bassist Vern Rumsey, who sadly passed away in August 2020. Their current bassist is a longtime friend, Jared Warren of Karp, Big Business, and Melvins, plus Unwound now features Scott Seckington on guitar. With the show coming to an end at 11 PM, we all departed Irving Plaza in the cold rain, and I felt extremely grateful that I finally got to experience Unwound live after all these years.
Horsegirl
Viagra Boys @ Brooklyn Steel - Brooklyn
October 18th 2022: Viagra Boys, shame @ Brooklyn Steel - Brooklyn, NY
Viagra Boys - Photos and Review Courtesy of: Edwina Hay
shame, the UK post-punk band, joined forces with Viagra Boys, of Stockholm, Sweden for a nearly month-long tour of the United States and ended their expedition in Brooklyn, NY on Tuesday, October 18, 2022.
Kills Birds, the Los Angeles based band that opened all shows on the tour went on at 7:30 PM. The band fronted by Nina Ljeti performed songs from their second record, Married, and ended their set with “Worthy Girl” which has an opening lyric of “this flower kills birds,” and Ljetl shared that it is how the band got their name before the song began.
Viagra Boys, who I caught earlier this year in Brooklyn, are touring in support of their newest album, Cave World, which was released in July on Year 001. Their setlist seemed to reflect a good portion of that record such as playing “Ain’t No Thief,” “Troglodyte,” and “Punk Rock Loser,” The group’s singer, Sebastian Murphy, dedicated the final track of that album, “Return to Monke” to their bassist, Benjamin Vallé, who passed away about a year ago said he loved New York and a fan who recently died but had friends in the audience. Their set also included older songs like “Ain’t Nice,” “Worms,” “Sports,” and “Shrimp Shack” with someone in the audience throwing both of their shoes at the stage during that penultimate song.
The post-punk quintet shame began the final set of the night at 9:45 PM. Their second studio album called Drunk Tank Pink was released by Dead Oceans in January 2021. Singer Charlie Steen seemed to waste no time engaging with fans by leaping into the crowd during their first song, “Dust on Trial.” All members were filled with energy, especially bassist Josh Finerty, who constantly ran back and forth on stage while playing his instrument. Before the final song of the night was played, “Snowday,” Steen revealed shame will hopefully be back next year with a brand new album.
shame
kills birds
Pitchfork Presents @ Knockdown Center - Maspeth, NY
August 21st 2022: Pitchfork Presents ft. Big Freedia, Dawn Richard, Billy Woods, Soul Glo, Jane Remover, Mega Bog, Water From Your Eyes, and Katie Alice Greer @ Knockdown Center - Maspeth, NY
Photos and Coverage Courtesy of Edwina Hay
On Sunday, August 21, 2022, the first Pitchfork Presents concert took place at Knockdown Center in Maspeth, NY. The stellar bill featured acts from a wide range of genres performing on indoor and outdoor stages and concluded with two performers from New Orleans, LA: Dawn Richard and Big Freedia.
The show began indoors with Katie Alice Greer (formerly of the Washington, DC punk band Priests), who was accompanied by Forest Juziuk performing songs from her June solo record, Barbarism. This was Greer’s first time performing live on the east coast in three years. Water From Your Eyes was up next on the outdoor stage and performed as a trio. Jared Ashdown also played guitar with Nate Amos and Rachel Brown. Mega Bog was backed by Zack Burba (iji), Aaron Othiem on keys, and Greg Fox (GDFX) on drums.
Jane Remover were up next on the outdoor stage and at one point, their DJ used a GameCube controller, which I can say I have never seen during a live set before. Soul Glo performed my favorite songs from their newest album Diaspora Problems (their debut for Epitaph Records), “Gold Chain Punk (whogonbeatmyass?)” and “Driponomics” and, predictably, a mosh pit broke out up front during their set.
Rapper billy woods was backed by DJ Mo Niklz and remarked that he spent seven hours in a car to return home to NYC for this show. woods performed songs from his new record with Preservation, Aethiopes, along with older material. At one point he joked that the audience at the outdoor stage was for Big Freedia so he would get out of the way soon. He was later joined by his Armand Hammer partner, ELUCID, for a couple of songs.
Dawn Richard was the last performance on the indoor stage and most of the songs she performed came from her Second Line album that was released in 2021. Her set seemed to be an abbreviated version of the Electro Revival show she did at BAM earlier this year and was wonderful again.
Big Freedia closed out the show, accompanied by a group of dancers and a DJ, by beginning with her recent single “Big Diva Energy” and moving on to older material such as “Explode” (which has the lyric “release your wiggle” that was featured by Beyoncé on her latest single, “Break My Soul”). Freedia also performed her remix of “Judas” by Lady Gaga and brought people from the audience on stage for “Azz Everywhere.” Speaking of Beyoncé, Freedia did her part from “Formation” before launching into her song “Play” which features Goldiie. Before Freedia closed her set, a sing-along to “Break My Soul” plus dancing to other songs ended the fantastic show before the 11 PM curfew.
Big Freedia
Dawn Richard
Billy Woods
Soul Glo
Jane Remover
Mega Bog
Water From Your Eyes
Katie Alice Greer
