I don’t know Kate Nash personally, but after being a fan for over six years and seeing her live two times previously (Once, I left early to go to the Harry Potter midnight premiere; she would understand), I feel as if I do. I’ve watched her grow from the twee British pop singer struggling to find her way to fight patriarchy to the confident woman who out rightly says, “fuck you!” to it.
Kate Nash has always written clever pop songs as evident in her first two full-lengths Made of Bricks and My Best Friend is You, but her newest endeavor, Girl Talk, takes those pop sensibilities and brings a sense of anger and urgency. The time for girl power is back, and Kate Nash is just the front woman to do it.
In the same vein as Kate Nash, I’ve watched Potty Mouth grow over the last year and a half, but more intimately. I’ve been following them since Allston Pudding put their little-known single “Shithead” on the July 2012 Allston Pudding mixtape. They’ve matured their sound, and Abby Weems’ song writing touches perfectly on the awkward gap between teen years and adulthood, a very fitting subject for most of the crowd at the House of Blues this Friday night. They’ve built confidence on stage and all the members (Weems, Ally Einbinder, Victoria Mandanas, and Phoebe Harris) have become a flawless cohesive unit. So this show, the biggest yet of their short but busy career, came at the perfect time.
They played many songs off their debut Hell Bent mixed with some old (if you can call it that at this point?) favorites from last year’s Sun Damage EP. Harris gave her mom a shout out in the photo pit, and I’ve gained a quality new friend on Facebook from her. Potty Mouth’s set lists always builds up from the first to the last song, leading to the grand finale of “The Spins” and “The Better End.” These two songs perfectly capture their maturity in song writing and musicianship, while making the crowd dance their asses off. I just bet that Potty Mouth has gained 1,000 new fans that feel as I did when I first saw them at PA’s Lounge last September.
La Sera, the solo project of Vivian Girls’ Katy Goodman, followed Potty Mouth with a solid set of infectious dream pop. The audience swayed along with Goodman’s songs, getting their legs warmed up for Kate Nash to cap the night off. If I thought Potty Mouth was awkwardly adorable in their stage presence, Katy Goodman could very well have them beat. She sent a lot of “I love you toos” to the crowd screaming their praise. The respective members of Vivian Girls are killing it these days between Ali Koehler’s project Upset, Frankie Rose’s solo work, and La Sera. Goodman introduced her band, and Todd, the guitarist, helped her by giving each band member a Madonna nickname to accompany his or her real name. Their set was all kinds of fun for both the band and the audience.
Kate Nash and her band, a self-proclaimed “girl gang” she traded for her former band, took the stage after an elongated video intro that made the crowd all that much more excited to see her play. The high pitch screams from the audience were right in my ear while shooting photos, but when I’m seeing Kate Nash mere feet in front of me, how can I complain? Nash had a perfect amount of indescribable British charm that I don’t usually eat up like most Americans, but tonight I was on the edge of my seat (so to speak as someone standing) listening to every one of her words carefully. British-isms like cup of tea and “going on holiday” were mixed within her songs and speak, adding to her charm.
Kate Nash hit perfect notes playing most often behind a guitar or bass, but would drop the instruments to sing and dance around the stage for the most fun I’ve seen an artist have on stage in a while. She was spinning so fast during “Oh My God,” that I was sure she would fall over from dizziness. This is Kate Nash though, so I should have known she could perfectly compose herself. She showed off dance moves that eerily reminded me of mine when I “go dancing”: running man, flailing arms, and small hops. As Kate Nash was singing out “and I’m singing oh oh on a Friday night,” during “Mouthwash,” I thought of how perfect this evening truly was.
Kate Nash’s performance is always different, and she always brings up her legendary performance at Great Scott in April 2010 that I was lucky enough to have attended. It was mere days after she broke her foot in Canada, she was on heavy painkillers, and the audience was feeding her vodka cranberries. As you can assume from this combination, the night was a drunken blur for Kate Nash who somehow managed to still put on a kick-ass performance and tell me I am her new favorite #1 fan. Yep that happened. Back to this show, Kate Nash recomposed old songs like “Mariella” and her encore “Merry Happy” to a new level. The musicianship in her band and herself has matured. The instruments were noisier creating new levels that hadn’t existed in their recording in 2007.
Kate Nash took a moment to talk about girl power to the audience. She mentioned the after-school program she started to both empower girls through self-esteem and teach them musical instruments. Kate Nash herself has struggled from pressure from the media, mentioning the infamous “red circle” they put around imperfections in your zoomed in face with no makeup. If no one was inspired by her speech that night, then I will be shocked from my head to my toes.
She also mentioned how inspiring Buffy was to her, a sentiment I can understand as someone who watched Buffy from a young age to help me learn how to become a strong woman. The evening capped with a dance party on the stage of members from the audience. Kate Nash was feeding them into the crowd to crowd surf, nothing I had ever witnessed at a show before. At the end, Nash fed herself to crowd surf through the audience, a moment summing up the magical evening. This is a show I will never forget and the favorite of every time I have had the pleasure to see Kate Nash.
