Header image by Stephen White
This month I had the wonderful opportunity of seeing the star of my Pinterest boards since I was 13, live and in person. The Pretty Reckless have been around since 2009, and finally headlined a show in Dublin this year. I ventured into the Olympia armed with heavy eyeliner and was faced with a sea of black shirts; a crowd clearly made up of long-time fans.
The Cruel Knives were a surprisingly refreshing as an opening act that genuinely interested the crowd. I’ll admit, they were not the most sonically innovative act, but they had a good alt-rock sound that I’ve missed hearing and were an appropriate choice to open for The Pretty Reckless. The drummer (Al Junior) was by far the stand-out, coming in heavy and staying consistent for their whole show. They looked like they enjoyed playing together, especially the bassist (Rob Ellershaw) and guitarist (Sid Glover) – hilariously twin-like in appearance and previous band-mates. The lead singer was not the most captivating frontman , but his vocals were powerful and clear, and he had good synergy with his bandmates. Their best song of the night, in my opinion, was ‘God is an Angel’, during which there was an unfortunate error with the sound, and the lead singer’s mic cut out. I think this is the moment The Cruel Knives won over the night’s crowd, which came out in full force – clapping and dancing to cover the lack of vocals until the microphone was back on. Astonishingly, the headliner now had a tough act to follow.
After a very brief set-up break, out came the band, followed by aplatinum blonde Momsen, lanky in her massive platformed boots. Opening with their newest hit, ‘Death by Rock and Roll,’ it was immediately obvious that this is a band that loves playing together.It comprised of some extremely experienced musicians, with lead guitarist Ben Phillips, bassist Mark Damon, yet another excellent drummer Jamie Perkins, and of course vocalist Taylor Momsen on rhythm guitar. Unfortunately, I did think the lead mic could have been louder, particularly during the first couple of songs.
They are a group that are clearly used to being on a stage, Momsen intermittently twirling and gyrating around her bandmates, climbing the speakers and holding the mic to the crowd for all the right lines; however, they looked like they would be more at home in front of a festival crowd than the dark intimacy of the Olympia Theatre. Momsen wasn’t quite able to take advantage of this close-quarters style of venue, repeatedly shouting “Dublin!” between songs and not much else. However, her ease while performing made up for the awkward gaps in crowd interaction. To be fair to them, as the show went on, they became visibly more comfortable, particularly Momsen, and the Irish flag-stickered guitar that was pulled out for the final four songs was a nice touch, but I did wonder whether they had used the same guitar for their Belfast show the night before.
I thought the lighting was great, not particularly flashy but maintaining a blue and pink scheme throughout, which played nicely against the black outfits of the band members and Momsen’s shocking white hair. They played the hits from their four albums, and the audience loved it; There were a suprising lack of phones recording, just people dancing and singing. Personally, their performances of ‘God Can Save Me Now’, ‘My Bones’, ‘Going to Hell’ and fan favourite “You Make Me Wanna Die’ were the best of the night. The energy and crowd control really shone during ‘YMMWD’, and bassist Mark Damon performed fantastically during ‘Going to Hell’, as evidenced by the drunken note I found on my phone the next morning which simply said, “Going to hell – bassist f***ing owns.”
The show closed with a brilliant drum solo from Jamie Perkins and a t-shirt thrown to the crowd, which was caught by a fan who had been lovingly headbanging for the past number of hours. They played two encores and finished to a happy crowd. It was not the best live show I’ve ever seen, probably not even the best show in Olympia. Nevertheless, I was very satisfied with my experience and was genuinely impressed by both bands, and would happily see both again.
