Blondshell at Electric Brixton

Thursday 11th of September, a journey I’ll never forget (someone pulled the emergency stop button on the Thameslink train before my final stop home. There was no emergency. You are not forgiven).

London was in the throes of a four day tube strike, and somehow I had to make my way from the tubeless suburbs of North West London to the depths of Brixton for Blondshell’s sold out show at Electric Brixton.

Many fans (including myself) successfully made the pilgrimage to catch Sabrina Teitelbaum (Blondshell), filling out Electric Brixton as though the tube strike didn’t exist. Westside Cowboy opened up the night, with their self ID ‘Britanicana’ tinged tracks pounding throughout the venue (think Wednesday; Black Country, New Road; Caroline).

Their impressive legion of fans who half have probably been converted while watching the set cheer them on with much compassion and vigour. I see people looking them up on streaming platforms during the set and remind myself to do the same after the show. I’m taken aback by the four part harmonies, tight drums and the innate stamina of the players. They finish off their set with an unreleased track ‘In the Morning’ surrounding Aoife O’Connell’s (Bass and Vocals) mic. Paddy Murphy (Drums) grabs his snare drum off the kit, and guitars come through a single stack behind the musicians. In that moment you are taken back to the beginnings of the band; small venues relying on amps and never quite able to hear yourself play, a place that Westside Cowboy haven’t forgotten since their quick trajectory into the limelight.

Teitelbaum (Blondshell) bounces on stage waving to her fans in front of her, opening up the set with ‘23’s A Baby’, off her new album. A track looking back at your 20’s, thinking you know everything, and wondering how the hell our parents had us at our age. ‘Cause 23’s a baby / why’d you have a baby’ echoes through the crowd of young 20 somethings.

Teitelbaum uses the stage to her advantage, traipsing and frolicing around her band with ease, her crowd work is that of a pop star while her songs sit deeply in the croonings of the jingle jangle indie rock genre. Continuously throughout the night the crowd is locked in with her, impressively knowing the tracks from both her earlier self-titled release, ‘Blondshell’, and her recent album ‘If You Asked For A Picture’. Standout tracks include Sepsis, the opening line of the song ‘i’m going back to him / i know my therapists’ pissed / we both know he’s a dick’ rings through the crowd as we all scream along in relation; Thumbtack, my favourite song of her most recent album, an acoustic heavy track is perfectly translated to a live show ‘you’re a thumbtack in my side / a dog bite, you distract … keep fucking with my head’; and an alt-rock cover of Addison Rae’s Diet Pepsi for the cherry on top.

Teitelbaum finished the set with her song Salad, asking the crowd to join in with the ‘heavy song’. This song actually put her back on my radar after seeing a number of videos of the track on TikTok a few months ago. Its story is one so many of her audience understand; violence towards women begets violence in return, ‘You’ll make a killer of a Jewish girl’ ‘It doesn’t happen to women I know / I put it in a box in a TV show’ ‘Cause we were never violent’. It’s dystopian but also empowering to watch a crowd screaming along to lyrics that invoke such truths. Teitelbaum’s music is a space of safety for queer, non-binary, and those who identify as women to express themselves unapologetically, and you can see that she’s only going to continue to grow since releasing her first single ‘Olympus’ in 2022, resonating with fans all over the globe.

Set List:

23’s a Baby

Toy

Docket

Sepsis

What’s Fair

Veronica Mars

Arms

Berlin TV Tower

Change

T&A

Diet Pepsi (Addison Rae cover)