Party, political
A real social movement and a really great band: the riot grrrl icons reunite in London. By Jenny Bulley.
Bikini Kill Brixton Academy, London
TONIGHT, SAYS Kathleen Hanna, with a sharp flick of her fringe, “is not some punk-rock retro bullshit thing.” Twentyeight years on from their 1991 statement-ofintent demo, Revolution Girl Style Now!, and 23 years since they last performed in the UK, Bikini Kill’s meld of punk, politics and art, devised to upset the dynamics of a male-dominated scene, hardly feels less relevant. With two young LGBT women attacked on a London bus just days earlier and US conservatives falling over themselves to restrict abortion rights, when Kathleen adds a few extra expletives to the
opening volley of Joan Jett-produced ’93 single New Radio and Jigsaw Youth from 1992’s split LP with Huggy Bear (“Don’t fit your definitions/ Don’t need your fucking demands”), few here could blame her.
“There’s some shitty shit going on right now,” Kathleen concludes, with the same piercing succinctness that makes Bikini Kill’s earliest songs aired tonight – This Is Not A Test from ’91 or the furious Don’t Need You – still sound so effective. Meanwhile, Feels Blind demonstrates the flip-side to that righteous anger: the strength in vulnerability, shining a light on internalised social approval (“I’d eat your fucking hate up like love”).
It says something about Bikini Kill’s current vitality that they’re playing to a crowd eight times the size of their previous London gig. And while the loudness of the PA – all deep boom and resonance – doesn’t do much for clarity, the scale of the place suits them. Even when they were a more primitive musical prospect – today, with original guitarist Billy Karren replaced by Erica Dawn Lyle, bassist Kathi Wilcox, drummer/singer Tobi Vail and Hanna seem fully rehearsed – they scaled up well, mostly because Hanna is such an electrifying frontwoman. When not galvanising the crowd, she’s bouncing, dipping and high kicking, with a vigour that belies recent years laid low by late-stage Lyme disease.
When Vail takes the mike – for ’95 B-side I Hate Danger, the power-chord polemics of In Accordance To Natural Law, and Hamster Baby and Tell Me So from ’93 album Pussy Whipped – she’s keen to address the band’s musical legacy, via Brecht and something about an imperfection instinct.
The sound is muddy but the message is clear: “You don’t need to know how to play an instrument to write a good song,” she concludes, introducing the metallic sting of Outta Me, with Wilcox on drums and Hanna playing bass (“Only on the top two strings… it sounds good and bouncy!”)
“This is a good song!” Kathleen declares before Distinct Complicity, then a parting blast of Magnet and Lil’ Red from Pussy Whipped usher in Rebel Girl: New Radio’s rousing double A-side and Bikini Kill’s joyous anthem.
For many in this diverse crowd, it’s a point of transcendence, when, as Hanna once said of her ‘90s band Le Tigre, “marginal people can come together and dance.”
They encore with a sneering one-two: Double Dare Ya and Suck My Left One from their debut, then For Tammy Rae, the slow song that first reunited Bikini Kill at a 2017 tribute to The Raincoats in Los Angeles and a balm for any beleaguered radical or marginalised dancer: “Let’s pretend we own the world today”.
“Hanna: bouncing, dipping and highkicking.”