Brody Dalle is one of Generation Y’s true survivors. With a tough start back in Australia to her fraught relationship with Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, Dalle came from the original school of hard knocks. Tonight in the serried surrounds of London’s Electric Ballroom, she’s far from the blackened eye youth of her Distillers days. Yet with a legion of ardent fans selling out tonight’s show ahead of her latest record release, the former Distillers frontwoman is no less powerful.
Album opener ‘Rat Race’ is a slow burner – all chugging guitars and indie drawl whilst ‘Don’t Mess With Me’ clatters in with eager drum trills and agitated fretwork; Dalle’s self professed “anti bullying anthem. One could argue, of course, that Diploid Love shouldn’t really be classed as the first solo outing for Dalle with her Distillers follow up outfit, Spinnerette seemingly solitary for all but the name. But as Dalle thrashes into a set of some sort of glorious noughties revival, it’s clear that it’s been Brody all along: in both bile and brilliance.
Hellion slaying ‘I Am Revenant’ is backed by Coral Fang’s screeching two minute thrash out ‘Die On A Rope’ as Dalle leads us through her evolution from punk upstart to indie majesty. Recent single ‘Meet The Foetus’ singalong end lurches the whole set into the some sort of almighty greatest hits. The guttural snarls of ‘Bullet and the Bullseye’ are headed up by the frenzied assault of Sing Sing Death House’s ‘Sick of It All’ as the chorus rings out from Dalle’s throat: “We are kids we play punk rock and roll. If we didn’t we got no soul”. Tonight’s crowd are very much entrenched in the Underworld.
Like raising demons with the flick of an overdrive, it’s Diploid Love; until Dalle do us part.