March truly came in like a lion as Sleater-Kinney roared into Tempe, AZ at the Marquee Theatre on the first of the month with their riot grrrl, post-punk feminist “Little Rope” tour, the first new music from the duo since 2021’s “Path of Wellness”. Leads Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker developed their sound in the mid-1990’s during a time when the PNW’s grunge scene altered musical history permanently. While both musicians came from other bands initially, Tucker and Brownstein found a sound that sparked a generation of no holds barred feminism. While their original drummer, Janet Weiss, is no longer a member, the duo brought a backing band to the tour that included Angie Boylan (drums), Katie Harkin (keys, guitar, backing vocals), and Toko Yasuda (keys, backing vocals) to round out their sound.
Black Belt Eagle Scout, a solo project for Katherine Paul, opened the evening with a profoundly emotional set including spiritual indigenous ballads that encapsulated the importance of tribal cultures in our country. Paul made it clear her music is derived from her people, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community on Puget Sound, WA. Through her melodic harmonies with her touring band, she had the early evening’s crowd mesmerized. When Paul gave honor to the O’Odham, Piipaash and their ancestors who first inhabited Tempe, AZ, the crowd cheered over the clear respect this band had for the land and its histories. During the set, while 2017’s “Soft Stud” from Mother of My Children was a fan favorite, their 2023’s offering of The Land, The Water, The Sky held several heavy hitters including “Treeline”, which seemed to resonate with the crowd who, by this point, was focused squarely on the song’s imagery and powerful vocal. Paul’s hazy voice and haunting spirituality, through the entirety of their set, was a nice juxtaposition and approach to musicality that balanced Sleater-Kinney’s harder, faster, in-your-face embrace of feminism through creative process later in the evening.
The crowd continued to grow into the evening as Sleater-Kinney took the stage shortly after 9:00pm. Seeing these artists up close and personal after years of listening to S-K, watching Brownstein’s Portlandia sketch comedy series and reading her autobiography Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir, I felt like I knew these two musicians more intimately than some. Tucker, who always seemed more reserved, took stage right and launched into “Hell”, the first of 22 tracks performed that evening. The songs during the set range from their most recent albums Little Road (2024) and Path of Wellness (2021) to older songs like “One More Hour” from Dig Me Out (1997). The evening was a mix of Tucker’s more melodic, scratchier vocals and Brownstein’s own raw intensity. The two, both guitarists, bring that unique sound to S-K to complement a relationship that’s going on forty years. I found the contrast between Tucker’s more subdued performance with Brownstein’s provocative stage presence made for a strong balance of musicianship for the evening’s show. Watching Brownstein side step across the stage in her Cuban boots towards her bandmate and break into smile as Tucker noticed her, brought a cheer from a crowd who was worried if there would ever be new music after the band went on hiatus in 2006. Brownstein remarked that a number of tracks at the show were fan choices from social media, including remarking that some of the tracks were quite obscure to their repertoire, before launching into my favorite song from Little Rope is “Hunt You Down”. Later in the evening they played “Modern Girl”, which Brownstein later used as the title of her memoir, before heading into an encore with “Say It Like You Mean It” and “Jumpers” both from Little Rope. They then jumped back almost twenty years with a favorite that SubPop remastered in 2014: “Entertain”. This radically, strong riff tore through the Friday evening crowd. As the lyrics waned down with Tucker asking rhetorically “whose side are you on?”, the crowd knew it. We were on their side, and yes, “you did ‘Entertain’” us.
Sleater-Kinney’s Set List
Black Belt Eagle Scout’s Set List
