Chick concerts

Right after moving into our new place we happened to go to a concert in our ‘local’ concert venue – the Shepherd’s Bush Empire. The Empire used to a proper theatre and can fit 2,000 raging fans. Completely packed to the brim it was indeed on 2 March 2008, almost completely by women, all there to see UH HUH HER, or rather, all there to see Leisha Hayley, the only real lesbian on The L Word, with her band U.H.H. We both had only heard a few tracks on YouTube, but I had high hopes for the show as I knew some of The Murmers songs, Leisha’s former band, which I liked very much.

Before we could enjoy the new sounds of Uh Huh Her, however, we had to stand a one-hour performance of, let’s just go on and say it, the worst act in the world. I am still trying to find out who paid these two chicks to literally stand behind a laptop and load songs onto Windows Media Player for the crowd to hear. Oh, and they did swing their hips slightly from time to time. Not so much in the way that a respectably talentless act might have choreographed dance moves to deter our attention from the lip-synching, but rather their hips swung in that way that even the most geriatric plastic hips might swing instinctively to loud music blaring over a sound system intended for a live act. They were unbelievably bad – if they were supposed to be a DJ act to warm us up, one would have expected some floor filler songs (but NO), a proper DJ performance a la Carmen (The L Word) and mixed tapes rather than a laptop, mp3s and a media player. I mean, really – who allowed them to go on stage!?

The performance of Leisha and Camila Grey was Grammy-winning in comparison to these two mannequins opening for them, but we both expected a bit more of Uh Huh Her considering the long time both of them were in bands already, and Leisha´s music connections (kd lang's ex). You could feel the lack of experience in performing together and Leisha´s insecurity about the whole thing. Another minus was the bad sound quality up on the second circle where we were. The music style was excellent though, and I look forward to the album release in May.

Two days later, on 5 March, we went to KoKo in Camden (30-minute ride on the 31 bus from Shepherds Bush), a fabulous venue, to see Tegan and Sara, a Canadian sister duo of 10 years, loads of albums and so many fans chanting all the words its a wonder that radio hasn't picked them up.

After the detestible performance of Uh Huh Her’s warm-up band, we were positively surprised by Northern State, a three-(white!)girl hip hop combo from New York, produced by Adrock of the Beastie Boys among others. Tight rhymes, deep beats that go boom boom boom in your trunk and absolute tongue-and-cheek awareness of their whiteness...All three girls played instruments, danced and handled the mic like pros. We still cannot believe that there isn´t already more buzz around them, considering their producer, their talent and the fact that they´ve been around quite some time apparently. Overall feeling – watch out Salt-n-Pepa, Ellen´s gonna be replacing her Shoop rap with Northern State´s 'Can I keep your pen?' - the next album on our must-have list.

Tegan and Sara gave a strong, solid performance, if not a bit simple and straightforward. The two concentrated purely on their instruments and the music, delivering a live presentation of their new album The Con. They sprinkled in some of their classics such as Speak Slow, Walking with a Ghost and So Jealous. The show was in no way lackluster, with the twins in top form and showing an absolutely flawless performance. The two are talented, serious musicians who had the crowd captivated by their musical performance rather than the banter in between. The only downside to the show was that Tegan and Sara skipped “My Number”, a real shame, as this song is especially fantastic live and gives the whole group the goosebumps.

Overall the show left us both even bigger fans of Tegan and Sara and near-groupies of Northern State!