The centre might hold
Beloved riot grrrls come home. You can go home again, can’t you? Asks Chris Nelson.
Sleater-Kinney
Paramount
Theatre, Seattle
SLEATER-KINNEY are familiar faces in the Pacific Northwest – but it’s a different band that walks out at the Paramount tonight. There are superficial changes. Singer/guitarist Corin Tucker has a drum pad to pound next to her microphone. S-K have upgraded their stage set to include a massive backdrop with an eyeball surrounded by lip-shaped eyeliner, a nod to The Rolling Stones’ logo, but more knowing.
Weightier still is their evolved line-up. Tucker and singer/guitarist Carrie Brownstein are up front as always. Behind them are synth and guitar players Katie Harkin and Toko Yasuda – and behind them sits drummer Angie Boylan, in place of fan-favourite Janet Weiss.
Surely it’s a dream gig for Boylan – but just as surely it’s an unenviable one. Days before, the Trap Set podcast released an episode where Weiss talked about her decision to leave over creative differences with Brownstein and Tucker. “I said, ‘Am I just the drummer now?’ They said yes.”
The Paramount show focuses on the album that drove the split, The Center Won’t Hold, produced by St. Vincent. On The Future Is Here, the album’s electronic colours get mushed into a grey of synths and cymbals. With Reach Out and Hurry On Home, the band sprint unnecessarily, which they’ll do throughout the show, on new songs and old, in sync but not on point. For those steeped in the catalogue, it’s hard not to feel as if S-K are desperate to be done on this penultimate night of their tour.
But things gel on Ruins, a march that calls out the Trump administration’s horrific treatment of immigrants and their families. Tucker’s vocals are often described as wails, and that’s apt here, as they become the ghostly cries of children haunting the sleep of border agents. Brownstein strangles her guitar neck like the demonic president choking off access to the promised land. Her face is all fury with Can I Go On, as she limns the emptiness and degradation of our digital lives. When the crowd joins her for the chorus – “Maybe I’m not sure/I wanna go on” – the ambivalence of “maybe” gets lost, and it feels like a roomful of people relieved to admit that they, too, could happily opt out.
On What’s Mine Is Yours, Brownstein abandons the Hendrix-y rollercoaster solo she plays on The Woods. As the rest of the band drop out, she meanders satisfyingly on her guitar, as if for the first time all night she has a chance to hit the brakes. It’s a respite that leads to her resting her head on Tucker’s shoulder.
That tender note reappears in LOVE. On The Center Won’t Hold, the track bounces between a novelty recounting of Sleater-Kinney history and a spotlight demand on behalf of older women artists. Brownstein smiles broadly when Tucker sings the chorus; Tucker catches her eye and looks back adoringly.
While more people on-stage might lighten the musical load, Weiss’s absence actually puts more emotional weight on Tucker and Brownstein. They carry Sleater-Kinney’s legacy – from early riot grrrls to intersectional activists – as two people now, not three. A woman outside the theatre, who travelled from Sydney to see four S-K shows, puts it plainly: “They’ve been such a part of my life.”
She’s not alone. At no time does the room feel as united as during Modern Girl, when 3,000 people sing the first half of the chorus: “My whole life….” From there, everyone filled in their own blanks.
Maybe lives, like the songs, can go by too fast. Maybe they’re restless. Undoubtedly, like the band, they’re everchanging. And acknowledging that point – together – makes that change less an upheaval and more of a balm.
“For the first time all night, Brownstein has a chance to hit the brakes… she rests her head on Tucker’s shoulder.”