Mannequin Pussy @ The Windmill (Live Review)
- Written by Captain Stavros
Mannequin Pussy
The Windmill, London
Words & Pics by Captain Stavros
In October of this year, Mannequin Pussy posted that a new album, I Got Heaven, would be released in March on their label, Romantic Records. Heralding the release, a string of North American and European tour dates were announced and are currently being fulfilled. Missing both their previous stops in London, ‘third time lucky’ would become more than just a mere platitude, it would become a reality. Our reality. Sneaking in, just under the wire, we blag our way into night two of two sold out shows for the hardest working band from Philadelphia.
The Windmill’s a standalone pub, in more ways than one. It lies at the end of a quiet street, in between pools of light about a 20-minute walk from the station (if you’re hoofing it), that you’d never find if you weren’t looking for it. Known for breaking the best up-and-coming bands (many of which campaigned for funding to keep the lights on during the pandemic, we’re looking at you, Goat Girl), tonight would be no exception.
Gaining and losing members since the band’s foundation, Mannequin Pussy would be playing with five of a like-minded kind this evening. Through the years, the band would make Rolling Stone’s and Pitchfork’s ‘Best New Music’ and, over the years, go on to release four studio albums alongside four EPs. Most recently, the band bought back their masters, and founded a label, their trending trajectory clearly on the ascent, with a focus on treating artists (and everyone in between) on it fairly. Has their slow burn success story found an audience and a must-see live-show that’d match pace? Well, on that chilly November evening in Brixton, they’d fire 16 shots into the audience, and each of them would hit the mark.
The crowd was made up of everyone; young, old, posh, rough sleepers, humanoids both foreign and domestic. There was even one woman on crutches who was allowed to keep them behind the bar for the duration of the gig. The stage, more of an exiled wizard’s lair with tinsel curtains and broken records stapled to the ceiling than a raised performance platform, was soon occupied. The first thing we noticed was that everyone’s fingernails were vibrantly decorated, but ground down for optimal playing performance, admittedly a weird thing to notice. Clothing? Sheer’s the name of the game, or boiler suit delights.
The set opens with ‘Sometimes’, followed by ‘I Got Heaven’ (Marissa half bark/breathes like a pervert throughout it into the mic) from the soon to be released album. Both will be (and were) full bodied instant hits; a ballsy move setting the tone of the evening. Fortune does favour the bold, and there would be no shortage of boldness tonight. Two unheard new cuts were also dropped from the forthcoming album, ‘Of Her’ and ‘Aching’.
The gig was somewhere between a crippling anxiety attack (due in part to a lack of personal space that nobody seemed to mind, and being penned in by a teetering 30 kilo speaker atop a two-meter-tall stand that ALSO nobody seemed to mind) and a jolt one’d get from licking a 9v battery. Mannequin Pussy played their way through their set the way a local might rip along with zeal down the winding roads of the Dolomites in the dark after a half bottle of fortified Lambrusco, with unheeded confidence. It was a complex and heady cocktail of mellow, hard, funky, and compelling stoner pysche.
Set highlights everyone got behind were ‘Drunk II’, ‘Control’, ‘Perfect’, ‘Everything’, and the finale ‘Pigs is Pigs’, which was bookended by Marrisa’s “WE DON’T DO ENCORES” and Colins’ feelings about the cops, of which, both statements had their merits. Shortly before the set came to a close, Marissa pauses, comes to the edge of the stage, and hoarsely speaks in the mic, “you might have come here alone, but you are not alone in this room”. Everyone, most of all the band, at The Windmill is soaked from head to toe in sweat. The crowd’s general appearance thanks to the smearing of eyeshadow, mascara and damp hair has taken on the appearance of a gothic water colour phantom. Keep an eye out for future tour dates, you won’t walk away dry or disappointed.
