They Spit On Their Audience

I went to go see a show on Monday that I still have a lot of feelings about it so I thought I’d share them here.

When asked of the best show I’ve ever been to, I usually cite the most recent music act I’ve seen. I was expecting this to be the case Monday night as I headed to the Vera Project in Seattle to see Perfect Pussy, a pro-feminist noise punk band from New York. 

The night started out promising with a two-piece band called Grackles. They had the dynamic of childhood friends who grew up wanting to make out with girls and not, and spending more time coming up with band names, debut album titles, cover art, and liner notes than actually playing, and that Grackles was the name of a Digimon they’d made up. There was a raw sexual energy about them that reminded me of listening to Sex Bob-Omb. The most notable part of their set, for me, was the fact that the drummer drank out of a reusable water bottle. A Klean Kanteen, I think. 

The second act was Eric Padget’s weirdo one man show in place of Future Fridays, who had been scheduled to perform that night but didn’t, for reasons unknown to me. The performance was strange and ineffable, so I will skip trying to write about it here.

When I saw Meredith Graves, lead singer of Perfect Pussy approach the stage, my girl crush was inflamed. I had only discovered Perfect Pussy recently through a friend who was planning to see them at their Portland show (which was cancelled due to Meredith’s complications with her wisdom tooth). During a preliminary internet search of the band, I was really digging their vibe. The articles and reviews I found had nothing but good stuff to say about them. Meredith seemed totally badass and cooler than being cool.

So when I saw Meredith kneeling on stage a few feet in front of me in combat boots, a leather jacket, and a red flower crown talking to two fans, I felt like going up to her and reenacting the scene between Ellen Page and Kristen Wiig in Whip It. I’d be like, “I just wanted to know that you’re my hero.” To which she would say, “Grab a mic, be your own hero.” But I didn’t. And I’m kind of glad.

As they were setting up, the friend I was with commented that it looked like none of them knew each other. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I also interpreted Meredith sitting on the floor of the stage saying something along the lines of “That’s why I haven’t gotten up, because I knew you guys would break something” to her bandmates as playful rapport.

When they started playing their first song, not only was it physically painful because of the volume, but also extreme discomfort due to the dissonance of not being able to hear Meredith at all. I kind of waited through the first song, thinking that it surely would be resolved by the next song. It wasn’t.

It was unfortunate because when the sound at a noise band’s show is bad, it literally becomes just noise. All the instruments got lost in the bloodcurdling noise. The band members seemed to be lost in general. There was no cohesion in the way that they played. It looked as if each member was just up there doing their own thing without any regard for the others.

What’s worse is that I got the feeling they didn’t give a shit about their audience either. There’s this great scene inFreaks and Geeks where Sam is poking fun of his parents’ taste in music at the breakfast table and his dad eloquently responds by saying, “I guess you’d prefer we listen to that punk rock music I’ve been reading about. You know those Sex Pistols? They spit on their audience! Yep, that’s what I wanna do. Spend my hard earned money to be spit on. Now that’s entertainment…Elvis didn’t expectorate on his fans.”

I felt like Perfect Pussy was spitting on us. And not just because their bassist shot snot rockets that landed unbeknownst on a few audience members. There was no feeling that they wanted to be there. Or that they appreciated that we were there. No rapport with or even acknowledgement of the audience, which may have contributed to the bad vibes I was sensing from the audience, too.

I have never been to a show with so little camaraderie. That feeling of oneness and understanding that we were all there because of the music and our desire to have fun. Going into the show I expected the pit to get rowdy and had planned on joining in. But as the mosh began to break out, I realized that it was near impossible to mosh without any distinguishable beat. But a handful of the audience persevered. At one point, standing outside the mosh, I got knocked down with excessive force and hit the ground. Hard. Slightly pissed and mostly embarrassed, I quickly pulled myself up. I realized in that moment that if that had been any other show I’ve been to, there would have been multiple people helping me up and making sure that I was okay. It was that sense of community I was talking about before, that this audience lacked. It was a very strange feeling.

I felt like I was trapped in a horror show or a David Lynch film. The noise was so loud, and I could see Meredith’s lips moving, but I couldn’t hear a think she was saying. Except for a couple times between songs where she would mumble self-deprecating things like, “Welcome to open mic night. We’ve never rehearsed. Ever.” Fortunately, after twenty minutes, it was over. The band just one by one left the stage without saying anything. It took me a few minutes to realize that their set had ended.

I left that night feeling angry and disappointed. Angry because I had two huge bruises that were beginning to swell from a show that I didn’t even mosh at. Disappointed because I was expecting an inclusive space both from the band and the audience. I’m sure it didn’t affect me as much as it probably did for those fans that had known of and adored Perfect Pussy for much longer than I had. It was painful to watch as they desperately still tried to like and enjoy the set.

This is how I feel. All criticism aside, there were a lot of factors that may have and probably did go into making this night a recipe for disaster. For one, it was at the Vera Project, an all-ages art gallery and music space, which didn’t seem a fitting venue for a band like Perfect Pussy. The second band did not perform as scheduled. Meredith had just gotten over her wisdom tooth complications. The sound was bad. They are tired human beings who have been touring non-stop.

There were definitely a lot of factors that were out of their control. I totally respect them for continuing to play even when the sound was shit. The show went on. But I feel like audiences are generally extremely forgiving if problems are acknowledged gracefully, with humor, and in a way that makes the audience feel appreciated.

I really like Perfect Pussy in theory. And I feel that if we had been able to hear Meredith’s strikingly honest and prophetic lyrics, we could have made sense of that night, why we were all there together, and created an unbreakable bond of invisible strings connecting us together as we all went our separate ways at the end of the night. Perhaps the night fell victim to unfortunate circumstance. I don’t know. If ever they Perfect Pussy returns to Seattle, I’ll go to contrast and compare.