This show at The Water Rats was for International Women's day and all the bands were fronted by Women, the bill was put together by Nina Courson's Tufnell Rock Towers.
We got into this sold out show just after She Made Me Do It came on, Shaheena Dax was applying some great dark hooky basslines to the super steady drums, Will Crewsdon brought the dark glammy guitar lines, I still don't know the bands song titles even having seen them a few times, but the next song was Special in many ways as they drew everyone into there slightly sci fi world view.
Have they fallen or is the darkness just what surrounds us all, Shaheena sang about all those Demons that are so Symptomatic of the way things have become. They closed by dedicating Silver Lining to International Women's day and the crunchy guitars went to the stratosphere.
Next on were dayglo punks PollyPikPocketz it's the third time we've seen this fun 4 piece whose set opened with The Ocean that was good and bouncy and got everyone going, We Are the Virus had great twin vocals with Myura and Frog drilling into the disease that humanity seems to be. Keyboard Warrior is still one of the best songs they have, it tackles one of the issues we all have to deal with on a daily basis.
I think the next song was Soul Sucka as Myura bounced all over the place and Matt Kiki went full on guitar god. Frog asked us all Do You Matter well not much in the grand scheme of things, but the fun they have is infectious when they are on this sort of hot form.
Reality (New World Order) is a bit too on the money these days but sounded brilliant. Myura then asked Do You Care About The People? A crucial question for anyone seeking power over us currently, this was bouncy agit punk fun with a conscience. I'm not certain but I think they closed with Hands Off Muthafucka either way this was easily the best set I've seen them play.
Next on were Delta Unit who are a 6 piece garage Power pop punk band led by Denise Santamaria who opened there set with Pills all about popping a few too many of them, Denise looked around the room and told us she was Ready To Kill Someone in her super sultry voice, while her guitar was bringing all sorts of pop magic to the song.
Stalker (I Ran Away from You) or whatever it was called is a dark howl of pain for freeing yourself from the pain of the clutches of that Stalker, why won't some men accept it's over, Sarah Jane's backing vocals made clear. You're Not Special was another clear message to leave these women alone.
Denise told us Here Today Gone Tomorrow is about how one of her friends left us too soon, this was heartfelt garage punk with a real conscience. In Control left us in no doubt about how should treat each other, it kept a cool poppy edge musically.
Alcohol was another salutary tale of excess and surviving it, or not as the case happened to be. Paranoia could be a theme song for our times, they had felt that Paranoia get to them more than once. For A While had really great dual vocals from Denise and Sarah Jane in her amazing outfit.
Denise then claimed I Can Make It right and with a guitar line like that it might just be possible, they then brought up their special guest international Woman, legendary special guest Spizz as they closed with Nikky's Gone To London that worked brilliantly as a hammed up glammed up closing song to a great fun set.
That just left time for Healthy Junkies who I've lost count of how many times I've seen them since Nina found me on Myspace eons ago and asked for a review. They opened with a super fiery version of Copycat with Phil Honeyjones guitar blazing away.
Self-Conscious is something it's hard to believe Nina suffers from as she has always been the most confident of front women. Was the next song Ball In The Fire either way it burned with anger and full on rage. Nina brought Frog from PollyPikPocketz up as her special guest International Woman for them to rampage through My D.i.y. or whatever it was.
This Is Not a Suicide was as visceral as it has ever been, full of anger. Dead Souls from the band's latest album Listen To The Mad isn't a Joy Division cover but has a dark edge to it, Media Whore is pointed and as bitchy as it needs to be.
Nina made clear she really would rather not need to sing Too Young To Die, but sadly friends keep leaving too soon. Son Of A Daughter had a good few twists to it lyrically while Phil really got super crunchy on his riff, while David James let rip on drums.
Julie's Got A Job is a brilliant twisted song that never makes totally clear if we should be happy about Julie's career choices or not. The Sound Of My Guitar sounded as great like it usually does. They had to beg to be able to play Theft just after curfew to close this brilliant night out, this was a long version with plenty of twists making clear that Healthy Junkies are a reliable great live band.
