Garage – 21/4
Selling out Glasgow’s Garage on the back of just two solo tracks is quite a feat. As the voice of fearsome LA punks The Distillers, as well as electro-glam quartet Spinnerette, Brody Dalle has a back catalogue that dates back more than a decade but 2014 is the first time she’s chosen to tour under her own name. With such a track record plus a reputation as one of the bravest and most outspoken women in modern rock, it’s safe to say that tonight’s stylish and attractive audience are definitely the cool kids.
Before the main event however, Beaches deliver a short set of crunchy alt-rock. Sadly, the audience seem relatively disengaged. Perhaps if they were aware of Beaches’ rather excellent Robin Thicke spoofing video to recent single ‘Absolutely Nothing,’ there might have been a few more sparks of excitement but the room unfortunately struggles to generate a suitable atmosphere.
With her shock of peroxide blonde hair and bicep tattoos, it is hard to imagine Brody Dalle and husband Josh Homme doing the school run. She’s clearly most at home onstage, delivering her songs with a practiced air and effortless charisma.
The set itself focuses mostly on her forthcoming solo material with the odd Distillers track like ‘I am the Revenant’ tossed in to appease the audience. The biggest cheers however are reserved for the angst-ridden ‘Meet the Foetus’, a gnarly rocker that on record features a guest appearance from Garbage’s Shirley Manson.
With an anonymous backing group and a tendency for the songs to sound rather similar, much of the success of the gig rests on the charisma of Dalle herself and whilst she is a magnetic presence, the show is not an unqualified triumph, with a few of the audience upset by both the selection of songs played and the running time of less than an hour. It’s probably not enough to tarnish her name but for all her pedigree tonights show feels like a work in progress rather than the finished article.
[Max Sefton]
qmunicatemagazine.com 