Bowery Ballroom
New York City
Words by Cameron Cook
Photos by Abbey Braden
The meeting between the Long Blondes‘ fantastic live show and this writer has been a long time in the making. Having been struck down, almost dare I say fatally, with seasonal illness every single time Sheffield’s finest have come Stateside, I found myself ONCE AGAIN with the extreme sniffles last Saturday, when the Blondes were slated to play New York’s Bowery Ballroom. Not one to be foiled thrice, I dragged by bony, disease-ridden carcass downtown to bring you, the ‘Sup reader, the true story from the rock ‘n’ roll frontline. Luckily, it was well worth it, as the Long Blondes brought the house down harder than ever expected.
Horn-rimmed glasses, Betty Paige-style bangs, polka-dots: the ’60s revival was in the house while openers The Virgins played their NYC indie-rock summer jams. Think Arctic Monkeys meets The Police, with a crazy fanbase of sun-kissed teenage girls. Seriously, it looked like an episode of MTV faux-reality series The Hills up in there. Enjoyable band though.
When the Blondes hit the stage, however, all hell breaks loose and every girl in the joint rushes the stage, ogling lead singer/indie icon Kate Jackson in all her femme fatale glory. And she is one doozy of a front lady, not only excelling vocally, but throwing such magnificent shapes she seemed truly from another era, when women used their sexiness as both a weapon and a ploy, before femininity and pop became nothing more than a few Pussycat Dolls writing on a stripper pole. And her fans knew it, from girls tearing up and singing every word, to drunken cries of “KATE IS A GODDESS!”, the devotion was unanimous. Is there anyway we could get her tattooed on our bicep, possibly straddling an anchor or something? She’s that fucking awesome.
The songs, as well, were quite worth the price of admission, most of them taken from their debut album Someone To Drive You Home, a collection of adventurous pop songs also steeped in ’60s rock and ’90s Britpop (the band are huge fans of Pulp, and it shows). The newer songs fared well, most memorably the opener “Five Ways To End It” and the mid-set ballad “Heaven Help the New Girl”, but it was the trusty batch of excellent singles that really shone: “Weekend Without Makeup” started a mini-moshpit of ecstatic fans and “Giddy Stratospheres”, possibly the Long Blondes greatest achievement, was a stellar moment. “Separated By Motorways” closed the set, and provoked a massive singalong. With such acts as Amy Winehouse and The Pipettes on their heels, it looks like after what seems like years, the Blondes are finally getting their due, and well on them.
