BIKINI KILL @ ROUNDHOUSE, LONDON

After postponing their UK and European tour dates due to Covid, Bikini Kill finally came over to play from their 1990 – 1996 back catalogue. With founder and frontwoman Kathleen Hanna at the helm alongside original drummer Tobi Vail and bassist Kathi Wilcox, they explosively opened with their debut single, ‘New Radio’, and early track ‘This is Not a Test’ to a crowd of screaming teenage girls who made up most of the audience. From their 1991 demo album, ‘Revolution Girl Style Now’, they performed ‘Feels Blind’, which typifies the grungy, indie guitar infused Riot Grrrl genre from the early ’90s Pacific Northwest that they pioneered, with an artillery style drum intro.

Hanna switched places with Wilcox to play bass whilst Vail left the drums to take over on vocals, relating how she had first heard feminist punk band The Slits when she was 12-13 years old which changed her life, albeit coming to them 5 years after they had first formed in 1976. She sung the circular ‘I Hate Danger’ and intimidatory ‘Double Dare Ya’, from their debut album. After Hanna performed further vocals, Vail sang the innocence of ‘For Only’, also speaking about her hilarious discovery of the nonsensical existence of ‘Egg punk’, then performing ‘Distinct Complicity’; X-Ray Spex-style with vocals reminiscent of Polystyrene. The band also tributed Beth Ditto of Gossip as a major influence.

Hanna returned to vocals and performed the pop-punk anthem ‘Reject All American’ from their second and final album of the same name and ‘Sugar’ from their second, ‘Pussy Whipped’, which she said was about celebrating how she felt inside as opposed to outside which is so dictated by the male gaze. Vail performed vocals once again for the guitar riff driven ‘Hamster Baby’, sung in Eve Libertine gobble-like vocals. Hanna then rounded off the night with a mixture of singles and tracks from their first and second studio albums: ‘I Like Fucking’, ‘Lil’ Red’ and ‘Suck My Left One’. Bikini Kill also did an encore of their other debut single, ‘Rebel Girl’, which Hanna dedicated to Viv Albertine of The Slits who she said was a great writer.

12/06/24: Bikini Kill @ Roundhouse, London.