Live Review: Sleater-Kinney

Fans gathered under the big top at Elizabeth Quay as they prepared for the band's show to kick things off at the slightly un-punk time of 8pm. Nevertheless when the three members walked onstage, plugging in and kicking into Price Tag, the crowd were on their feet and moving in time to the beat with touring member Katie Harkin adding some extra percussion to Janet Weiss' solid rock drumming. Guitarist Carrie Brownstein battled some slight technical difficulties in the first half of the song but played on in fine form while Corin Tucker delivered some killer powerhouse vocals.

They followed on with the first of many tracks from last year's No Cities To Love, beginning with the up-tempo new wave sounds of Fangless featuring Brownstein's biting lead vocals. Tucker quipped to the audience that Perth was their favourite city in Western Australia before joining Brownstein for dual vocals on Oh! from 2002's One Beat. Brownstein and Weiss exchanged friendly glances as the band launched into classic Get Up complete that featured a fantastic guitar solo from Brownstein.

The band went into another song off their latest album, Surface Envy, with Tucker delivering some great Cherie Currie-style vocals on the fast-paced rocker before moving down to just a three-piece to perform Ironclad off of 2000's All Hands On The Bad One that got a huge round of applause from the audience followed a fantastic foot stomping version of What's Mine Is Yours.

The band announced next song Light Rail Coyote as a song about Portland where they first formed, something many of the Sleater-Kinney (and possibly Portlandia?) fans may or may not have been familiar with but enjoyed nonetheless. The band followed on with Youth Decay, which ended with Brownstein shaking her guitar over her head violently as the song came to a crashing end amid a huge round of applause from the audience before No Cities To Love brought back Harkin to the stage to add some extra keyboard and guitar to the title track from their latest album which got a fantastic reception.

The band continued on strong with tight versions of A New Wave before classic title tracks All Hands On The Bad One and One Beat. The band slowed things down for Bury Our Friends with Brownstein and Tucker playing gentle bluesy guitar lines before Tucker belted out a huge high note in the middle of the song that received a big response from the crowd.

The band finished out the set with a tight version of Jumpers before returning for an encore with The Fox, I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, Dig Me Out and capping things off with an electrifying performance of slow burner Modern Girl.