Rebel Grrrls: Bikini Kill and Death Valley Girls championed feminine solidarity in a riotous evening at The Wiltern
Icons. Trailblazers. Revolutionaries. Bikini Kill have earned these accolades and more, inspiring generations of young women to express themselves fearlessly, championing feminist perspectives in what remains a largely male dominated medium. It's no surprise that Bikini Kill's platform is as galvanizing as ever, a rallying cry for women and girls to band together and draw strength from the desire to not only be heard and seen, but to be understood, recognized, and respected alongside their peers.
The atmosphere was electric for the Bikini Kill's second night taking the stage at The Wiltern before an audience enraptured by the opportunity to revel in the magnitude of such an iconic band. Women who grew up listening to Bikini Kill on their Walkmans stood proudly alongside their teenage and younger daughters, bonding over common emotions and shared experiences that solidify the cultural impact of riot grrrl's enduring legacy.
Death Valley Girls opened the evening with a thunderous celebration of community that represented the band’s most actualized rendition to date. Bonnie Bloomgarden stands prominently at the nexus, but this latest iteration of Death Valley Girls was completed by a stacked roster of luminaries including Heather Nation on guitar, Staz Lindes on bass, and Bailey Chapman on drums alongside a vocal chorus delivered with enthusiastic aplomb by frequent co-conspirators Kelsey Hart, Jonnie Lee Baldwin, and Hannah Pierce. In this form Death Valleys Girls truly felt like a singular collective channeling individual talents into a unified expression of unbreakable solidarity that shook the heavens themselves with unmitigated joy.
It was impossible to not be moved in the face of Death Valley Girls' polyphonic spree and pummeling tribal rhythms that seemed to transmit vibrations of the very elements of the universe herself into a thrillingly electric symphony of the spheres. The power of their intergalactic gospel was indisputable, igniting an awestruck audience to radiate in harmony to the expansive and breathtaking enormity of wonder emanating from the amplifiers. Occasionally dipping a toe into darkwave mysticism, Death Valley Girls did not shy away from the shadows that coexist alongside the radiant brilliance, acknowledging the fact that one must often endure the darkest of nights before basking in the warmth of a new dawn, and that the path to true healing is one that we do not need to walk alone. Reinforcing the bands overarching manifesto, the ever unflappable Bloomgarden shouted "This song is dedicated to everybody!", a crystal clear message of individual fortitude through unity and inclusion.
At first blush, Death Valley Girls couldn't be more different from Bikini Kill, starkly contrasting new age garage psychedelia with the latter's angular punk aggression. Despite the differences in their accents, Bikini Kill and Death Valley Girls represent a similar ethos, occupying adjacent corners of the alternative underground while taking different approaches to empowering common themes of solidarity, independence, and resilience - each heavily varnished with a thick coating of impenetrable take-no-shit attitude.
Bikini Kill took the stage to a tremendous explosion of adoration that set the very air alite. Ripping directly into an impressive setlist that spanned the entirety of bands catalog, the feral foursome unleashed a barrage of monumentally blistering manifestos with barely a moment's respite. From the initial chords The Wiltern erupted in a furious mosh that barreled through the GA pit like a whirling dervish tearing across a desert landscape, transforming the cavernous environs into a semblance of the small, sweaty clubs where Bikini Kill built a name for themselves. All one needed to do was close your eyes and 2024 aligned with 1996 in parallel congruity.
Resplendent in glittering sequins and neon tresses, Bikini Kill's New Wave-in-a-blender aesthetic camouflages the bands bare-knuckled approach in a layer of beguiling taffeta cotton candy, perfectly embodying the fullness of feminine expression with unflinching audacity. But style plays a supporting role to substance, and Bikini Kill are masters of dishing out explosively potent punk diatribes that burn away any form of decorative embellishment in favor of a pummeling blitzkrieg of sound and fury, locked in and fully loaded for bear.
In a moment of commentary between songs later in the set, Kathleen Hanna related her earliest feminist awakenings by expressing the sensation she felt as a girl realizing "oh shit, I'm not alone!" The sense of belonging as a part of something bigger, of being a member of a community and a movement that furthers the advancement of oneself and all those around you is a core value, one that exists as an inexorable commonality that unites riot grrrls of all ages and persuasions, leaning into the unstoppable force of womanhood in all her forms.
Follow Bikini Kill on Instagram and listen on Spotify. Stream Death Valley Girls on Spotify and follow on Instagram.
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August 2024
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