The Kills’ Melbourne show sold out in a stupidly short amount of time, and arriving at The Prince Bandroom, it’s easy to see why: it’s a great venue, with a circular bar at either side of the room, a balcony and a underground-glam atmosphere. But big, it is not.
Recently formed (as in, haven’t even released their debut single yet), Teenage Mothers, are first up, rocking the whole garage-punk, loser-chic thing in both image and sound. Front man, Raph Brous, sings and sways with the showiness you’d expect from a guy who bares his chest for press shots, but he’s entertaining. And while some bands’ collective social conscience compels them to rant about nuclear power or PETA, Brous rants about speed cameras being calibrated at RMIT. Arguably irrelevant, but informative nonetheless.
Of course there’s the requisite wait between sets and compulsory rock star tardiness, but suddenly, the lights go out on stage, the music stops, and Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince (or, VV and Hotel to the old fans) emerge. They quickly take their places – Hince, wedding band on hand, stands ready alongside his drum machine and picks up a guitar, while Mosshart leans against the speakers on her side of the stage, her hair already flailing around her face – and start the set with ‘No Wow’, delighting and reassuring the crowd that this isn’t just going to be a showcase of material from their latest album, Blood Pressures. And indeed, the audience is treated to songs from all four of their studio LPs throughout the night. But Blood Pressures’ tracks, naturally, get a decent show too, as the set opener is followed by latest single, ‘Future Starts Slow’.
Audience members on Hince’s side of the stage become a swarm of leaning towers as they strain to see Mosshart, showing that although media attention has been definitively directed toward Hince of late (a side effect of marrying a supermodel), lovers of The Kills are still desperate to see Mosshart’s swanky strut around stage. While her seemingly effortless and charismatic vocals (a little more growly since she’s been in The Dead Weather) assert her as a front person of sorts, it’s always been obvious with The Kills that they are both equally integral to the band.
Mosshart picks up a guitar as the set leads into ‘Heart is a Beating Drum’ and shows that she likewise knows a thing or two about ye olde axe. At one stage, she rests her head on Hince’s shoulder, smiling and whispering to him, and being in the presence of their overt and intimate chemistry almost feels like something no one else should be allowed to see.
Hince’s underrated guitar playing is accompanied by his intent gaze out at the crowd every time he comes to the front of the stage, and his talent is particularly highlighted during ‘Baby Says’; one of the few songs where it’s the riffs rather than the vocals that foremost make you want to . He appears to play for the audience and for himself in equal measure, and he looks terribly suave doing it. The pair readily interact with one another, but aside from the occasional ‘thank you’, they are more or less mute when it comes to audience interaction. Still, this distance is part of their charm: their music is accessible, but they are not.
Hince and Mosshart depart suddenly and surprisingly after having played for less than an hour, the lack of warning making apparent that the encore has been written into the set. Granted, most of their songs are quite short, but it still seems a little economical for a band that has four albums’ worth of material. They re-emerge and finish with ‘Fried My Little Brains’, a fitting end to the night.
Ultimately, the Kills played well, but they occasionally seemed reminiscent of ageing bands that are just going through the motions. The crowd also didn’t help to energise the atmosphere: there were cheers during the intros of favourite songs, but most audience members remained stagnant throughout the gig, responding no more than if they were just listening to a CD at home.
The Kills delivered exactly what the audience expected – Mosshart passionately threw herself at all angles around the stage, and Hince expertly held the set together maneuvering between guitar and drum machine – but their performance lacked the spontaneity and twists that are the reason we love live music.
– Dunja Nedic
