Petrol Girls - Live Review

Petrol Girls @ The Bodega, Nottingham- 17/01/2020

   If Rock City is the big brother of the Nottingham music scene, then the Bodega is the baby sister of the Nottingham music scene. Noisy, sweaty, cramped… but always up for a hell of a party. As we walk up the stairs of a cold winters evening, the opening band of the evening  Buenos Treehouse are already on stage. The local boys are playing to a fairly packed room, which is always nice to see, especially early on a Friday evening. The band have a real DIY Hardcore feel to them, reminiscent of The Menzingers or Weezer, and do a fantastic job of getting the crowd all fired up. The intimacy of the Bodega really plays into the bands hands, and they fill the space really well creating a really strong wall of sound.

   It must be pretty awesome to buy tickets to a show and then get asked to play the show, making your tickets redundant. That is exactly what happend to the evenings second band Damn Cargo, who had brought tickets to the show before being asked to play one of the opening slots on the bill. Damn Cargo play with an uncomfortable level of intensity, it is clear that you are in their space and for the thirty minute set they are letting you in. 

   How do you describe the Petrol Girls? On the way home from the show we created the term Proto-Political Punk, we don’t really know what it means but it certainly sounds cool and it feels like it really describes Petrol Girls. Starting the set by inviting all “women, trans and non-binary” members of the crowd to occupy the space in front of the stage, sets out the intention for Petrol Girls show. This is 50% punk show and 50% protest, Petrol Girls have a voice and they are making themselves heard. The way that singer Ren prowls the stage is almost animalistic, she is ready to pounce, scream and fight to get the meanings behind the lyrics of Petrol Girls’ music heard. 

   Petrol Girls are a force to be reckoned with whenever they hit the stage, they have a message and they get that message through. You come away from a Petrol Girls show wondering if you are doing enough in the world and how they hell you are going to start doing more. Every song has a true and honest meaning, a message that needs to be put out into the world. If you haven’t seen the Petrol Girls live, then you need to find the nearest show to you and get yourself along, the chances are it will change the way you view the world. Songs such as ‘Harpy’, ‘Touch Me Again’ and ‘Survivor’ get the crowd snarling and screaming. The set is full of powerful moments and imagery, such as Ren jumping into the crowd and growling the lyrics of “touch me again and I’ll fucking kill you” into the microphone with a crowd of all those people she had invited to the front of the room. Just like Ren pointed out towards the end of the set “if you don’t think the recent election result was a major fucking catastrophe, then you get out”.

   The set, pre-encore, ended with lyrics “We’re not finished and we never fucking will be”, which is a statement of the bands commitment to the important causes of which they are so dedicated.