Duchess Says

After seeing one of my new favourite bands who I’ve seen before, Crystal Stilts, I wasn’t sure any act could follow their eerie Joy Division sound. We decided to stick around at the same venue, to listen to Duchess Says, none of us had heard of them and had no clue what to expect of their music, but I personally thought they would be an all female band because of their name plus Vivian Girls were following after them. When they got on stage, the room seemed part empty because of having seen Crystal Stilts in the same venue, which was tuna tin packed.

The lead vocalist, who was the only female in the band, was bizarre to say the least, as was the sound protruding from her lips, at times it sounded nonhuman, what was I to think? I loved it, the crowd loved it; the security man was confused and he kept glancing up at her. The sound was definitely punk with elements of experimental thrash. Going back to her bizarre element, she had this strong powerful stare that looked as though she was looking at the crowd who were in oblivion, she kind of seemed to be on some sort of concoction that I wanted in on. Her stage presence was more than active, she was alive with her sound and was literally jumping around the whole room; moshing with the crowd whilst singing, stroking the floor in which the crowd were standing on, stroking people in the audience, buying a drink at the bar to then accidentally spill three quarters of it over her arm, I could go on forever. What makes this all even more rock’n’roll was that she wasn’t even acting, it all felt and looked 100% genuine.  The other band members seemed unfazed by her vibrant character, they somewhat appeared to have a look saying ‘we’ve seen it all before’ as they strummed and beat away, providing the fuel for the machine. I don’t know where she gets the energy from, particularly as she played a gig at Bristol the day before at the same festival.

Even when you listen to their MySpace you can almost feel her energy as she sings, the passion and confidence she has in her band, that I think would make any band feel in awe of. The hipster dominated crowd was in love with the band, and I can speak for them when I say we never wanted it to end. I’m not heavily into this sort of music, whilst listening to their MySpace I’m reminded of another band, Be Your Own Pet,  who I got into after my sister got out of them: long story. I was so mesmerised by her performance that I didn’t even know how the rest of her band looked like until uploading the above image, and I completely forgot about Crystal Stilts good performance, and was excited to find another new band, I was buzzing, a teaspoon of her energy had rubbed off on me.