[ATTENDED: August 7, 2021] Mannequin Pussy
I had tickets to see Best Coast back in March of 2020. I like them, but the primary reason I wanted to go was because Mannequin Pussy was opening. I had seen them open for Japandroids in 2018 and really wanted to see them again. Best Coast had cancelled their tour and while they are coming back early next year they had a new opening act.
So I was pretty psyched to find out that Mannequin Pussy were opening for Japanese Breakfast (whose tickets we had for a while already).
Mannequin Pussy are now officially a trio (they were a quartet when I saw them last), with the core of marisa “missy” dabice–guitars & vocal; colins “bear” regisford–bass & vocals and kaleen reading–drums. Although they were a five piece on stage with a “new” guitarist and keyboardist (not sure who they were).
They came out, the red lights went on (I forgot about those terrible-for-photos lights at Union Transfer) and proceeded to play two brand new songs. Somehow I had missed that they released the Perfect EP earlier this year. They sounded great–Missy’s voice a terrific mixture of pretty and screamy. “Control” set the stage followed by “To Lose You.”
Then came a bunch of songs from the terrific album Patience. “Who You Are” led to the great pairing of “Patience” and “Drunk 2.” “Drunk 2” has a cathartic line of her singing “I still love you, you stupid fuck” and the crowd obligingly screamed along. They followed this with the ripping “Cream,” one of my favorite songs of theirs.
S. had not heard Mannequin Pussy and I told her they had some melodic songs and some real ragers. She was as surprised as I was to find out that she liked the ragers a lot more. In part it’s because of the way Missy introduced them.
She told us that they formed the band because most people don’t have an outlet where they can just scream. You just can’t go around screaming during the normal day. So they formed the band to do that. And they invited us to scream along with them. After a year an a half of being cooped up, it felt pretty great. As did her exhortation that every problem in this country right now is created by white supremacacy. And that every white person has a responsibility to do something about that. I hadn’t been a room full of righteous indignation in a long time.
Jumping to the Romantic album they played the shorter, punkier “Pledge” (1:19) and “Romantic” which features some of Missy’s softest vocals followed by some big crashing chords. They returned to Patience for “Fear/+/Desire” a song that combines mellow and rocking elements.
Miss took off her guitar and the keyboardist played it–giving Missy freedom to jump around for the next few short rockets. That’s when Missy invited us to scream, followed by a series of short punk blasts like “Everything” (1:21) and “Kiss” (1:15). Kaleen Reading on drums is absolutely ferocious. I tried to get some decent pictures of her but she was a blur most of the time.
Then the title song off the new EP, Perfect followed by the oldest song of the night “Clue Juice” from their debut album that I don’t really know.
The rage wasn’t over as us next was the 38 second “CLAMS” [I think an insertion of “F.U.C.A.W.” would have been pretty awesome right here]. Then Missy switched over to bass and let Bear take lead vocals for the intense “Pigs is Pigs.” It was great seeing Colins up front (and on the floor (behind the fence) high fiving people). He dedicated the song to his parents who were in the crowd. Catharsis was the order of the evening to be sure.
The band ended the night with “In Love Again” by calling out Japanese Breakfast violinist (and member of OHMME) Macie Stewart. It was a breather after the rage and a good way to end the set.
Mannequin Pussy will be headlining Union Transfer in October and I’ll definitely be there to see them when they rule the night.
- Control √
- To Lose You √
- Who You Are ¶
- Patience ¶
- Drunk 2 ¶
- Cream ¶
- Pledge ®
- Romantic ®
- Fear/+/Desire ¶
- Everything ®
- Kiss ®
- Perfect √
- Clue Juice ξ
- CLAMS ¶
- Pigs is Pigs √
- In Love Again ¶
√ Perfect (2021)
¶ Patience (2019)
® Romantic (2016)
ξ Mannequin Pussy (2014)
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