Concert review/photos: Perfect Pussy @ First Unitarian Church
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Graves urged the crowd into a frenzy while pushing it back with her own.
[ 4/25 ] …Throwing and thrown around before finding myself side stage, the environment had no room for critical distance, for the hand around the chin, for a coherent “review.” You were either within the noise and chaos the band summoned or at the fringes of it, an observer…
…Their set lasted about 20 minutes or 20 seconds, and there might still be pieces of the audience in the basement of First Unitarian Church waiting for an encore that won’t come, dazed, smiley looks on their faces, what just happened, is it over, more more more more more…
…Meredith Graves…she walked on in a white sweater (soon ripped it off) with the words written in pink “wish you were here.” She was all bright red lipstick, bright smiles, kindness and gentleness until they suddenly started playing — and whoever that person was disappeared, replaced by a woman who was all screams and violent, spasmodic gestures. At the sound of her first yelps on “Bells,” an eruption of hysteria hit the room and the crowd surged forward into the band, some reaching out to grasp at her. A photographer was lifted off his feet and thrown by the sheer push of bodies onto the carpet that served as the stage, the stage monitors (ostensibly demarcating the line between band and audience) were pushed and kicked forward. Graves stood amidst the collapsing scenery as if against a tidal wave, urging the crowd into its frenzy and simultaneously pushing it back with her own…
…Some kept asking for Graves’ volume to be turned up, and it was, to no avail. The guitars, keyboard, and drums were too loud, the pitch of her wail too much like the instruments. And what good would lyrics be anyway, who wanted language in the presence of noise like this…
…“Interference Fits” proved a strong enough tune to be intelligible through the roar, call it their version of a pop move…
…Can they sustain this? Maybe for only 20 minutes at a time, and maybe not for long. Anything that announces itself into the world this urgently and zealously disappears the moment it is discovered, recedes before it can be grasped, waits until someone can muster the courage to call it into existence again. Circumstance will surely intrude, someone will insist that Meredith Graves’ voice has to be clearer on records; someone else will insist that they write “songs,” because what we can’t do without is another fucking verse-chorus-bridge just so our dads know we have a sense of musical history…
…After the show, as the band slowly broke down their equipment, most of the crowd just stood where it was, a whole room of people slowly coming back to themselves. It was like we all had this dream where a young band did something more than live up to its hype; they temporarily abolished the very idea of expectation and every stricture that comes with it…
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