(This originally appeared in Soundcheck Magazine)

Sleater-Kinney
with The Quails and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
at the Roxy, Boston, MA 10/15/02

The difference between Sleater-Kinney on record and Sleater-Kinney in concert is analogous to looking at a mural of the Grand Canyon and being there in person; the mural might be pretty damn impressive, but being there in person just blows you away. Anyone who walked out of Sleater-Kinney’s explosive live show at the Roxy without their adrenaline pumping was either deprived of their senses, or was a legion of the undead. Quite simply, rock shows don’t come better than this.

From the very beginning, when Carrie Brownstein, Janet Weiss, and Corin Tucker casually strolled onto the stage, the crowd was caught up in the electricity of the night, as the band tore into numbers from their excellent new album, “One Beat,” such as the frenetic “Oh!” or older numbers such as “#1 Must Have.” With Tucker howling, wailing, and occasionally shaking her ass to the music, Brownstein jumping around (looking like the echo of a young Pete Townshend) and holding her guitar over her head, and Weiss continually upping the ante with dramatic drum fills, the entire room seemed to come alive in a giant celebration of rock. The girls kept the between song banter to a minimum, instead maximizing their time on stage to charge through songs like “Burn, Don’t Freeze” and “Youth Decay.” At various points, Brownstein thanked the crowd for dancing and singing along, and it would’ve been hard not to, during intense instrumental passages where Brownstein and Tucker’s guitar riffs alternately played off of and then weaved in and around each other, all the while rushing towards the ultimate release of melodic and dynamic tension. There were moments when the music became almost hypnotic, and one look at the beaming faces of the band let us know that they were getting just as much of a thrill from the music as the fans were.

The new songs fit in seamlessly with the old, with “The Remainder” and “Prisstina” leading right into “You’re No Rock’n’Roll Fun,” and “Words & Guitar” preceding “Step Aside.” The encore consisted of “Little Babies,” an extended “Call The Doctor,” which climaxed with an exquisite drum solo, and ended with the solo melting into the supercharged “Dig Me Out.” Leaving the Roxy, one could only think that while Sleater-Kinney may never move as many CDs as the Strokes, there is no denying just which band can rightfully call themselves the Best Rock Band in the World. Special praise must be given to the Quails, who kicked off the evening with some Sleater-esque energy, but in a style all their own.

-Neal Alpert