The Donnas/Donita Sparks/American Bang
Highline Ballroom
October 10, 2007

Click for Full Photolog of The Donnas on Flickr!

I’ve seen The Donnas a handful of times, but they’ve never really impressed me live. Boy have things changed. Last Wednesday, the queens of punk rock took stage at the fancy new Highline Ballroom and shredded the place for over an hour. After the smoke cleared, the shiny ballroom was just a carcass, and the fans were begging for more.

American Bang opened the show. They sound kinda like Mooney Suzuki, but with a more hippie look and garage rock meets Skynyrd sound. The band pranced around stage for half an hour, posing, soloing, and bragging about being from the South. They weren’t bad. They weren’t great.

The fans went wild when the next warm up act hit stage. Donita Sparks is best known as one of the first Riot Girrrls, having founded L7, released the first non-Bad Religion record on Epitaph, and has been a relative bad ass for decades now. Her band is a take no shit rock outfit that killed it for the next 45 minutes. She looks like a pissed off David Johansen and her band has the musical balls to pull off a fantastic MC5 style romp. Mental note: definitely worth checking out if she plays New York again.

The Donnas came out to a sea of diehard female fans and loyal boy toys. The intimate venue meant no barricade and a chance to actually touch one of the rockers (high-fives only). The gals rocked out to over a dozen tunes encompassing most of their most recent efforts, including the seizure inducing new record “Bitchin.” Singer Brett Anderson commanded the front of the stage singing stoic as fans maddeningly pumped their fists to every word. Guitarist Allison Robertson was all hair, strutting around the stage doing her best Angus Young impression while bassist Maya Ford smiled at the overweight, 50 year old mean drooling in the front row. The only person completely obscured by the stage was drummer Torry Castellano, who was a blur of drumsticks behind her metal-up-yer-ass looking drum kit.

The band tore through most of their hits to the delight of all, closing with their perennial classic “Let’s Go Mano.” The set was short, but The Donnas put more energy into their hour-long set than most bands put into three. No wanking solos, just full on shredding, rocking, and annihilation. These girls just keep kicking ass.

Click for Full Photolog of The Donnas on Flickr!