Day two of Lollapalooza and Mother Earth still wasn’t going to cool down Chicago. My first stop of the day was at to see Los Angeles quartet Warpaint. These ladies have been slowing building a buzz about their band after releasing their 2009 EP Exquisite Corpse. With the strength of Exquisite Corpse and a stellar set at last fall’s CMJ Music Marathon they recently got signed to Rough Trade Records and their debut LP is due out this fall.
And Warpaint deserved to get signed. They played yet another stellar set at Lollapalooza, and did psychedelic rock proud. Coming out and controlling sound check themselves, left the fans a little stunned and buzzing. This may have been an awkward at first but this allowed fans to see their personalities. Especially while they were shooting the shit they did an impromptu 3-minute jam secession.
After sound check was over, the ladies jumped into a moody and dark set with great precision and beautiful harmonies. Fans got into a hyped-up relaxed zone and were swaying along with the band. Although their music maybe “moody and dark” don’t get the wrong impression, at times the ladies were dancing, drinking beer and grooving to their own tunes; something the crowd only emulated back. At one point bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg and guitar/vocalist Emily Kokal were dancing all up on each other and Kokal even shook her tits jokingly to the crowd. This made me love them more.
Seeing a band you’re unfamiliar with (as I was with Warpaint) is always interesting because you don’t know if they are going to deliver delicious tunes for your ears to eat up, or if they are going to rape your ears with awful noise that makes you want to shove spears into your ears to make it stop. Warpaint delivered a delicious set that Lollapalooza goers’ ears feasted on.
To get an idea of how badass these ladies are, just look at bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg. She shaved off her hair but her bangs, although this sounds like it would be an awful look, she totally pulled it off.
—–> Download their single, Elephants for free here <—–
