Some acts always deliver. Whether they’re playing a brand-new album or some anniversary of a classic, whether they’re opening or headlining, in the club or outdoors, they always do it right, do it to death. Such is the case with Jamie Hince & Alison Mosshart, a.k.a. The Kills, when they played their second show in a row at New York’s Webster Hall on Tuesday, February 27th.
While they’re now more Los Angeles & Nashville, The Kills are no stranger to New York, having come up in the same NYC aughts rock scene as The Strokes, The White Stripes, and other bands that didn’t start with “The”. And while those various acts have grown in many ways (or disbanded), in a way The Kills have stayed truest to that ‘return of rock’ Lower East Side feel. Even if Webster Hall is more Union Square (QRO venue review), it was just the two of them up there on stage, no backing touring musicians or other rock star accoutrements.
Touring off of last fall’s God Games (QRO review), their first new record since COVID (not counting b-sides/rarities Little Bastards – QRO review), the new album naturally had the lion’s share of the set list, but The Kills have been around long enough to have a ton of songs to choose from. They could still start off with an oldie, “Kissy Kissy”, from 2003 debut Keep on Your Mean Side, follow it up with hit “U.R.A. Fever” from 2007 breakthrough Midnight Boom, and then go into a God track such as a great “Love and Tenderness”. They are able to shift their sound on record and live, this night playing the sweet likes of “Baby Says” (off of 2011’s Blood Pressures – QRO review) into harsher Midnight classic “Tape Song” & God’s “Bullet Sound”. Mosshart sat on a stool at the front of the stage for God’s touching “Blank”, noting that it was the first time in a while that they’d played it, but then they let it rip for Mean’s “Fried My Little Brains”. And this was New York, so of course they did God’s “New York” – and that album’s “LA Hex” for good measure (QRO review of both).
Just being two people up on stage is normally a tough job, but not for Hince & Mosshart. She performed her trademark wild jerks to the strong beat (there were drum machines), whipping her bleach blonde hair in the stage lights, gripping her own belt like a cowgirl on a bucking bronco (so much so that one could worry that she’d fall over). Hince rocked his guitar, going to the lip of the stage at times – special mention of his white guitar cord, that looked like a curly old school landline phone cord, that also lit up under the lights.
The COVID shutdown threw everyone for a loop, and some are still getting back together, artists only recently finally releasing records. But you don’t need to worry if The Kills will deliver.
