The Power and the Fury

So I went to see Sleater-Kinney at the 9:30 Club on Saturday night. I didn't have a ticket to the sold-out show, so I had to pull a "I need a miracle" style canvassing of the people in line to get into the hall in order to find one (which I eventually did after 25 minutes).

I went to see the guitarists, Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein, really, but lo and behold, instead saw the best drumming spectacle I've ever witnessed firsthand.

The band's drummer, Janet Weiss (no, not the Rocky Horror Picture Show heroine), pounds the drums with such visciousness and sheer power that it's hard to believe that she can keep it up for a full 90-minute show. Yet, somehow she does, and then some. We're talking Keith Moon, Dave Grohl, and John Bonham-style bashing here--a crushing wall of sound that propells the music and defies anyone in the audience to ignore her. I was blown away.

And the rhythms were dead-on. Weiss played tight, crisp passages that gave way to wanton destruction and returned back to the groove again and again. I'm telling you, it was amazing. If you get the chance to see this woman play live, do it.

Plus, they covered Danzig's "Mother," which was very cool.