Kim, Butcherettes, Hit ‘Ceiling’ in Wild Show
By DONNA BALANCIA
Rock ‘N’ Roll may have been a man’s game, but women are taking over, showing they can do anything a man can do and do it wearing high heels.
Kim And The Created and surprise guests Le Butcherettes, climbed to the ceiling, crowd-surfed, and even wound up laying face-down on the floor. It’s not what they did, but how they did it that showed feminine flair, raw truth and new-era style punk.
With passion and physical strength, the ladies of the night: Wuwu, The Butcherettes and Kim And The Created, captivated the crowd at the Echoplex with great music, in-your-face acts, and flirty but overwhelming power.
Wuwu kicked the night off with her cool, tonal synth, little girl voice, and spirited dancing; her petite and darling appearance grabbed the audience attention. She and her ponytail spun between working the keyboards and pirouetting for the people in a little Eskimo outfit reminiscent of a blue Santa’s elf. But that was about as tender as the night would be, because after that, a couple of storms moved in.
Le Butcherettes
If there were a thing as seat belts for a concert audience, this would be the time to use them. Teri Gender Bender, the lead vocalist of Le Butcherettes is an unexpected shock of compressed energy who blows the doors off the hinges. She stomped out onto a dark stage babbling some wacky chant like “La La La Sha Sha Sha,” all dolled up and waving her arms around, as if being forcibly dragged to some 50s zombie prom in hell.
She went from chanting and stomping to pleading and crying in her native Spanish as well as in English, lying flat out on top of the crowd to jumping in among those standing on the floor. Teri’s a beautiful, swirling virago of power, music, femininity, athleticism – and theatre drama – all tied up in a messy red-high-heeled, fluffy package.
“I don’t know if it comes from my parents my mother and father or in the spirit or what,” she said after the show, referring to the appearance that she is possessed while on stage. “Something takes over and I don’t know how to explain it.”
The Guadalajara-born beauty and her Butcherettes sweep you up in the madness, spin you around and rock you backwards. Then she coos and calms only to blow up at any moment.
Seeing Le Butcherettes is a compelling experience, in two languages no less. The songs, including Solo Soy Pueblo, Sin Sin Sin, and Kiss and Kill are hypnotic and rebellious, much like the group itself.
Teri’s very warm to the audience, as after the show she bent down to reach out, hug and shake hands with a devoted crossover fan base that’s been following her since 2010.
She also had to climb back up to pull one of her red high heels out of the top of the scaffolding where she hung upside-down earlier singing. Just another inherent risk that goes with the punk territory.
To her credit Teri has kept Le Butcherettes going despite changes to the lineup, which now is comprised of Chris Common on drums and Riko Rodruiguez-Lopez on bass.
Kim and The Created Homecoming
They have a great sound, but Kim And The Created is a remarkable band to watch.
Fresh off their tour supporting The Kills back east, Kim and The Created seemed happy to be welcomed home warmly by an audience that clearly knows her act and loves it. Their release party was to promote a new 7-inch flexi-disk record, “Get What I Want,” which is catchy and has the look of something you’d have peeled off a cereal box back in the day.
That’s in keeping with the retro style of Kim House, whose performance reinforces solid music that comes from some deep feelings that are universally experienced.
On stage Kim is clearly in her element and she uses every square inch of space in her wild act. Nothing gets by her — or the audience — as she leaps off the stage, climbs the scaffolding, runs around, and whips her head and lanky torso around. It’s clearly a love fest with her fans, and any second thoughts she has obviously melt away when she mans the microphone. She simply takes your breath away.
If you published an instruction manual on how to capture the audience, Kim and The Created would be the authors. They’re clearly studied professionals on how to do their jobs because this seemingly simple show is actually quite rich in complexity.
Theirs is one of the most balls to the wall performances we’ve ever seen. Kim’s evening was comprised of floating between her riveting guitar work, to laying flat-out, face-down on the floor, dousing the audience with alternating warm words and cold water. Oh, then she considerately throws a pile of napkins around – not something a guy would do.
Kim And The Created’s work is the kind of performance you wish everyone would give on some level, and the performance is so riveting you can’t look away. Kim makes this extremely physical style performance look easy when it’s extremely challenging and best left to those in their 20s.
There must be some type of workouts at the gym to get in shape for this kind of show. But all that aside, Kim and The Created brings a remarkable rainbow of complexity, beauty and the honest music that everyone — men and women both — can truly cherish.
