2003-10-14

On Saturday Bitchcraft played again, this time at the Palais Youth Venue for an all ages gig as part of This Is Not Art. In the past we have completely barred the Palais, since our previous gigs there have been very, very ordinary (in terms of crowd size, promotion by organizers, sound), and the kids haven’t ‘gotten’ the whole Bitchcraft schtick. This time was very different. The gig was a launch for Lip Magazine, which is produced in Canberra by a crew of young women, financed by one of the health mobbies. There were lots of locals and many out-of-towners hovering around the venue this early evening. Our set was short and trashy sounding (as there was a simple vocal PA), but the vibe was great and that really came across. There was a real rapport between the crowd and the band – or maybe we were just extra up ourselves that night and THOUGHT we were kickin’ it! I was without a microphone, so spent some of the set out amongst the crowd yelling backing vocals at them and the kids seemed to like that. I like to kid myself, that I am really into performance (though never having pursued it other than onstage with a rock band) and taking that performance to a different level, but making it inclusive rather than alienating the crowd or elevating myself above them. As such, much of my performance involves being quite silly and overt. My favourite part at the moment is my “Yoko Ono moment” at the beginning of “Hi on H8”. It is most silly.

After we played, I again sold quite a whack of merch and was quite surrounded by keen new fans. One girl said “Youse are the best girl band I have ever seen”. Uh, I have to agree….*smirk*. Another took a copy of our CD to review in one of the Sydney street mags, someone said they will get us to play in Canberra and we are hopefully playing the CD launch of Pure Evil. We are really keen to have other people give us supports anywhere out of town. Its nice for people out of town to like us, as here in Newcastle people know us and think we are funny, pissed tarts and write us off a bit. I mean we ARE, but its nice when people think you are entertaining to boot!