GIRL IN RED
WHERE 170 RUSSELL, NAARM/MELBOURNE, VICTORIA WHEN WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 1ST, 2023
REVIEW ELLIE ROBINSON PHOTO FRANK HOENSCH
From the second Marie Ulven (better known as Girl In Red) raced out onstage with her band of equally maniacal misfits, 170 Russell was a heaving riot of adolescent stamina and sapphic thirst. It helped that Ulven and co. kicked their set off with ‘You Stupid Bitch’, the fiercest and most explosive cut from her debut album, 2021’s If I Could Make It Go Quiet.
With a long night ahead, Ulven immediately dropped the mood to something more laidback, flipping to the opposite end of her sonic spectrum with the silky, R&B-influenced ‘Body And Mind’. From there, the set’s energy undulated beautifully across the hour, rising gently with the saccharine bliss of queer anthem ‘Girls’ and the wistful slow-burn of album highlight ‘.’ – a peak held with the sexually charged, yet melancholic ‘Hornylovesickmess’ – before being cranked up to 11 with the visceral pangs of angst felt in ‘Serotonin’ and ‘Bad Idea’.
Ulven commanded her crowd to jump for the chorus of ‘Dead Girl In The Pool’ (arguably the best song on the setlist) and as we learned quickly, she has the power to play her devotees like puppets. The floor rattled, steam rising from the pit as shoulders clashed and hair was matted – and then with the drop of a beat, we were back to square one, ‘Midnight Love’ reminding us that Ulven’s calmer side is just as enthralling as her chaos.
“Chaotic”, too, would aptly describe her banter, loose and ramble-y and laden with stutters – surging in fame over the past five years, it’s clear she’s never had a chance to master the art of the pre-song speech. But this is part of her charm: she talked to her sold-out crowd like we were old friends catching up over coffee, sharing dorky anecdotes and spiralling off into whimsical, ADDfuelled tangents.
One of those tangents, towards the end of the set, became the basis of an improvised song idea Ulven spent a few minutes hashing out on her Telecaster. Elsewhere, she flaunted her skills catching grapes with her mouth, waxed lyrical about her girlfriend and got lost in the most random conversations with fans at the barrier. There’s an argument to be made for this muddying the set – Ulven and her band played 13 songs in total, but could’ve easily squeezed another five or six in if she didn’t goof around – but that’s not an argument we’re keen to make: above all, this show was fun, and the lawless amity of Ulven’s character was a core factor in that.
Her band was also insanely talented, taking songs that on record feel twee and lowkey, and with two guitars, bass, drums and live synth, injecting them with a rush of colour. They didn’t feel ancillary to Ulven as the show’s nucleus, but like true equals of hers, elevating her sharp and spirited vocals while she elevated their impassioned jamming. The dual guitars, too, mean there was an extra boost of rock-ish energy doled to the otherwise pastel indie-pop numbers, making them sound fuller and hit harder than they do on record.
Closing out with another booming sapphic classic, ‘I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend’ – replete with a wall of death that she herself leapt into for the final chorus – Ulven proved that she’s 100 percent deserving of her fans’ cultish adoration. And after seeing her crush it once again at the Laneway festival a week later, we confident in saying: Girl In Red shows don’t just live up to the hype, they may very well be underrated. If you have the chance to hit one up, you absolutely, most certainly should.