Le Tigre

When the news broke that Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna was in a new pop band, Le Tigre, people got worried. How can you make pop music, happy sounding music, with political and vitriolic lyrics? It can’t be easy, but Le Tigre pull it off well.

Taking to the stage at Nottingham Social, the screaming anger of Bikini Kill and Julie Ruin but a distant memory, we’re treated to a mixture of lo-fi electronic pop dance music, feminist ideology, short films, and synchronised dance action to songs like What’s your take on Cassavettes and LT tour theme, songs so funky you feel like joining in on the dancing! Even the harder tracks such as Yr Critique, and My Art, ooze a creeping funkiness. These are songs that make you dance, but they make you think too. When I say* Le Tigre* are pop, I don’t mean it in the* S Club 7* sense, I mean proper pop music that makes you want to get moving and thinking. Take a song like Keep on Livin, a song based on the emotional turmoil of expressing your true self within a society that can’t deal with anything other than what the media deems to be ‘normal’, yet remaining totally fun sounding and funky. That is no mean feat to pull off, and when it is, it shouldn’t be taken for granted. This is how all pop music should be, In your face, without being so confrontational that you have to back off.

The audience tonight certainly embraced Le Tigre, and it showed, Kathleen, JD, and Johanna looked like they were enjoying every second on stage, and announced that they were genuinely taken aback with how Nottingham received them. And let’s face it, they’re not the type of people to spit out the same old rock and roll clichés! It seems Le Tigre are really hitting their stride now. They have the right attitude and they have the tunes. Let’s hope they bring us plenty more to keep us thinking and dancing!