Michael Hann

The grrrls are back in town

Plus: why had 10,000 people bought tickets to see the tuneless scrappy punk rock of Bikini Kill?

issue 22 June 2019

The last time Bikini Kill played in London was in a room that now serves as the restaurant of a pub in Kentish Town. What a change 26 years can bring: on their return to the city last week, they filled the 5,000-capacity O2 Academy, Brixton, for two nights.

That changed status, in truth, is not the result of the timelessness of their music — scrappy punk rock that at its most tuneful was pleasingly familiar and at its least tuneful approximated the sound of fingernails scraping down a blackboard at extreme volume.

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