The Distillers - London Astoria - 13/11/03
4/5
By: Samantha Hall
Forget the grunge-o Courtney Love comparisons... yeah, seriously. The Distillers are a far way off from glam girly rock... more, 'sliced punk', with a real kick. Not even in the circle-pit of a Rancid headline-gig have there been so many mighty Mohawks.
The vast female crucifixion is strewn across the backdrop (their latest album's infamous artwork), bearing all on stage. This is what The Distillers are all about - the imperfect figure, the lack of distinct Hollywood toning, no falsified glamour or prettiness: just raw, bare and (partially) naked. The two contradictions in one: coral-fang, dirty-sweet, disgustingly-alluring, and singer Brody manifests them all in her ragingly omnipresent demeanour. Only in this sense is she similar to Love - somehow pleasingly filthy and dishevelled... admirably adventurous, even.
And the former Mrs Armstrong stalks about the stage with such a commanding, possessive air, you can see why she earns the title 'ice-queen'. The audience relationship/interaction is weak and frankly the band seem as if they couldn't give a f**k. But, by hell, these kids don't care either. 'Drain The Blood' naturally makes the crowd rarrll, despite drenching feedback issues.
And as she prowls in her hooker-high spiked heals, she is everything a rock n' roll bitch should be. It's genuinely satisfying to possess a female front-woman that for once doesn't stare innocently to the ceiling and pout. To break the misconception that 'female bands' can only drag onto stage a painful rendition of how their boyfriends' have screwed them over. It's about bloody time that us ladies woke up and realised we can do better than this. And Brody is leading the way. And even though the rest of the band are 'gentlemen' (ahem, yeah) that raw... not femininity... just 'womanly' essence, is evident in everything The Distillers touch. Brody proves us all wrong - you can rock hard and still be sexy.
Despite their ravaged appearance, live, these punkers are slick as a knife. Timing is immaculate, rehearsed and tailored to a T; it rather breaks the old-skool illusion of punk being about the moment, not editing. Some would categorise this as a major flaw, yet surely a band that knows their instruments and how to use sound to get the best out of an audience is all the more a valuable one? The sweat and roars tonight seem to personify that notion.
And if to create another band as predominantly female empowered, yet with as hard rollicking an attitude (opposed to the abundance of moaning cats whimpering about men out there) means sacrificing some of the spontaneity - then so be it.
Artists in this article: The Distillers
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