“I have a thousand mothers who’re strong, free, and deadly.”
The hype for this show was real, as the promise of Vukovi’s Nula in full, sold out 15th March Electric Ballroom months in advance. Knife Bride were later added as main support, and close to the date Ankor were also added. My apologies to them as I missed the start time change (though the traffic might have gotten me anyway). Perhaps maybe venues should communicate such time changes better anyway? Vukovi has just been main support for two Ankor dates in their home of Spain, so it’s heart-warming to see them swap places. All I can tell you is that the room was packed out for Knife Bride’s start.
Words and photos by Dobbin T.
Knife Bride
It’s been satisfying to observe Knife Bride’s upward trajectory, but tonight might be seen as a left turn for the band. The surprise announcement that Lauren Wise was no longer part of the band makes this set a significant one. Whilst it wasn’t addressed from the stage directly, and I’m not wise to any reason behind the separation, there doesn’t seem to be much animosity in the split – Wise was smiling from the press zone, watching the band with joy, singing every word of the set. Furthermore, it looks like she wasn’t being replaced with a track: this is ‘guitar mode’ Knife Bride, coming in djentier than ever. Guitarist Sean Windle threw out wild screams over micro-pauses during the tech breaks, and added little harmonies on his mic. The terrific mix was ready to lift all the female voices of the night and gave Mollie Clack ample vocal space for her powerful delivery. Clack said that the band had “wanted to play this venue for longer than they’d been a band, and fans of Vukovi for even longer”. Whilst this will be an adjustment period for their line-up, here’s hoping they continue to rise.
Vukovi
Vukovi’s setlist (see below) was a massive 18 songs – every moment of Nula, the new singles “CREEP HEAT” and “MERCY KILL” plus the hits “Colour Me In”, “Run/Hide”, and of course “La Di Da”. Setting the record straight from our review back in 2022, all three attending Boolin Tunes writers agreed that Nula is a consistently strong album from front to back, and seeing it performed in its entirety only cemented that opinion. Janine Shilstone could hardly contain her excitement as she “tried not to disassociate” before the sold out room. For the slower songs (“Colour Me In” she took some time out (“I’m gonna sit down for this one, I’m fucked…”), but her vocals only sweetened as the night went on, peaking in my opinion with “MERCY KILL” (“Slither back you fucking germ!”).
There was a stunning light show to match the record’s sci fi themes, focused on red and blue hues for the record and switching to green with crimson searchlights for the remaining tracks. The lighting engineer was still flexible enough to match light pulses to spontaneous crowd chants between songs. Unlike a lot of bands that merge off-stage electronics with on-stage performances, I didn’t feel like the backing track was carrying them; of course there were synths, low end, and some vocal harmonies on track, but all the rhythms were driven hard by the acoustic drums. The record’s instrumentals felt spruced up for the album performance, as “ATTENTION” became like some prog metal intro. Before the final song “La Di Da”, Shilstone explained they wouldn’t be encoring because “encores are wank”. They get it! The only indulgence was one extra extension, a sludgy “the riff but slower” extension ending to “La Di Da” to remind us that Vukovi embrace corny metalcore, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Vukovi are heading to Passpop in the Netherlands in a few weeks, then off to the USA in May, plus several confirmed summer festivals (Rock for People, Czech Republic; Reload Festival, Germany; and Download Festival, UK). Check out all the dates here.