IRVING PLAZA, NEW YORK, NY

MAY 22, 2000

On the long, serpentine line out front, I asked one disaffected youth if there was an opening band. He didn’t know. Turns out there were two… more on that later. The Gossip took the stage first, and if you closed your eyes, and you might have wanted to, you could be fooled into thinking you’re hearing a bizarre amalgam of the Creedence Clearwater Cramps, fronted by Poly Styrene, doing ten songs that each sound like two-minute versions of Rattlesnake Shake by 1973-era Aerosmith. I waited the whole set for the lead guitarist to play a solo, and he didn’t—not even once—and I still don’t know whether I love him or hate him for that. Say what you want about a fat girl…hey, come on, guys, enough—but don’t say jack about a fat, sexy girl, and the lead singer was that. Gyrating her rotund libido with reckless abandon, she shook the Gossip through their swamp-bayou boogie, and managed to get the audience to actually care about them. They were a fun band who understand their job.

Looking like the touring company of Boys Don’t Cry, The Butchies, from North Carolina, played for the unprecedented length of six hours and twenty three minutes (my estimate), which is rather long when you assumed there’d only be one opening act, and not two. In fact, in my opinion, roughly half of the sixteen-year-olds thought The Butchies were actually Sleater-Kinney until their fourth song or so. Wearing boiler suits ala Tommy-era Townshend, which they called their "onesies," The Butchies were very tight and truly electric on stage. Their drummer is an animal, and I wish they’d turn her loose more often.

They played a blistering (first ten minutes), self-aggrandizing (next six hours thirteen minutes) set of hard rock that, after the initial energy rush, simply sounded like the kids table wanted service. As you might have guessed The Butchies are um, well, that is, they like girls. That ensured that all the night’s attempts at irony were clearly intentional. Amazing drummer—let her go, girls.

Opening up with The Ballad of a Ladyman off their new album, All Hands on the Bad One, Sleater-Kinney tore through most of that album with a ferociousness befitting their rabid fan base. At one point, later in the concert, it seemed that no called-out request would go unheeded—even leading to a cover of White Rabbit, that proved to the Damned that you can do kick-ass justice to the song, and it doesn’t have to take twelve minutes.

Sleater-Kinney pulled-off the difficult task of touching on material from all their albums. The fans down front, however, seemed really keyed-in on the earlier stuff. One would have thought that this new album was on a major label, such was the umbilical-like coveting of the band’s earlier material, such as Dig Me Out off Dig Me Out, and The End of You (a true highlight, in a night of highlights) off The Hot Rock. Ironclad, You’re No Rock n’ Roll Fun, Youth Decay and The Professional, all amazing cuts off the new album, were done to perfection. One of the greatest aspects of seeing Sleater-Kinney live is figuring out just who’s singing what on what. I walked away from this concert ready to marry Carrie Brownstein. Oh, calm down, as if she’d have me! This is coming from a former Corin Tucker man. I must admit, it reminds me of my three-remaining-Monkees-live-at-Westbury-Music-Fair experience in 1996, when I walked away with Peter Tork as my favorite Monkee (insert asterisk here—he was the one playing all Nesmith’s songs.)

Carrie (Thin White Duke—my choice, not hers) Brownstein was amazing to watch. She deftly handled the chores of "using most of the stage" while Corin (Born In A Cute Skirt—thank God!) Tucker stayed handcuffed to the mike most of the night. Janet (Looks Like A Good Hugger) Weiss holds down the drums in that sparse, hard, Mo Tucker way that turns me on so much I can’t stand myself—although, I must admit, the Butchies drummer already took me to the mountaintop. Sleater-Kinney is truly on fire when all three ladies are singing together over a shambling sonic clusterfuck. Luckily, they were on fire the entire night.

I can say with a sincere amount of discretion, that Sleater-Kinney are even better live than they are on record. And on record they are the greatest rock-and-roll band (of any gender) in the world. Finally, a punk band that can’t also be labeled Metal. They’re making the smartest music of their career, and that’s amazing given their Kill Rock Stars track record. The only excuse for not catching Sleater-Kinney live, is being home making your own music—which is what seeing these women live will make you want to do. Where the hell’s my rat pedal?