The Kills: Electric Ballroom, London 09 Feb 2005

Such a heinous crime against the world of music, just what is The Kills’ problem? With the imminent release of their second album, ‘No Wow’ you’d think the dirty blues duo would be courting music journalists with earnest proclamations of keeping it real so their vague dismissal of Band Y can be splashed over the cover of the latest issue of the tabloid music weekly. But in an act of betrayal, if not downright treason, the pair brazenly stare through hollow eyes from the recent cover of style magazine Dazed & Confused. So those self-important purveyours of taste now know they can write The Kills off as a band more concerned with style than substance. After all they emerged a number of years back as a grittier White Stripes so now it’s surely time to push them off that particular bandwagon.

Onstage at London’s Electric Ballroom you can see where this attitude comes from. Though they no longer bear the intriguing monikers VV and Hotel, relying instead on their parentally approved appellations, Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince, there’s still something very affected about The Kills. Mosshart bears a heavy fringe and strides to the front of the stage to pout like a model caught in the headlights, Hince has that sharp-dressed nerd look that gets you beaten up in school, but earns admiring praise in the gawky rock world.

The Kills sure have style but you can’t say they lack substance. From the opening chords of ‘No Wow’, a riff so dirty it could be done for indecent exposure, highly-charged blues bleeds from their speakers. Hince jerks wildly to his own stomping guitar like an epileptic robot, while Mosshart, when not melting into the microphone with every phrase, prowls the stage like a caged lion. There’s an almighty sexual tension underlying everything that happens. Their interactions are erotically-charged as their face their microphones and sing to each other, their faces almost touching. Hince has an old-fashioned phallic interpretation of his instrument and they have a little set-piece where his thrusting riffs cause her to flail wildly away from him.

They play a lot of new songs, but don’t forget the crowd favourites from 2003’s ‘Keep on your Mean Side’. The thundering beats of ‘Fried my Little Brains’ is a predictable success as is the encore-rendition of their angst-ridden anthem ‘Fuck the People’. Their latest single ‘The Good Ones’ is excellent; its Donna Summer-esque disco rhythms causing an outburst of bouncing in the tightly packed venue, while ‘Murder Mile’ highlights the increasingly melodious nature of their new material. Overall the only problem with the music is that they are hampered by their reliance on a backing track, meaning many of the songs are like exact replications of their recorded version.

They overcome this with a magnetizing stage presence that yes is stylish, but also very theatrical. By the end Mosshart’s precise coiffure has been shaken asunder by her impulsive head-banging and slinky sprawls over the speakers at the side of the stage. An intensity of performance like this once cannot be insubstantial. At the same time The Kills have style, but it is one befitting them. It’s called rock’n’roll.

words & photos: Colm Larkin

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