There’s nothing more exciting than realizing you’ve reached “fan” status with a band. And after picking up Social Lubrication, followed by their 2020 live album IRL, I’ve gone officially “all in” on the political dance punk stylings of Dream Wife. My turntable has pretty much alternated between both discs all year, reminding me that I need to pick up the two earlier records so I don’t wear out the other ones. This show has been on my calendar for most of the year, and it was also my return to Bottom Of The Hill, one of the most magic venues on the west side of SF Bay.
Opening the show was ANOTHER legend of San Francisco, Buzzed Lightbeer. I don’t like to judge a book by its cover, but I do love judging a band by its name, and I was already on board with such a pun-filled joy of a band name. I’ve been sampling their songs for many years now, but I haven’t had a chance to enjoy them live until today, and it is well worth the wait. They give us a blistering, over-the-top, straight-ahead rock show. Vocals were shared amongst the whole band. Gabi on bass was the wild one, flinging herself into the crowd, crawling on the floor, and being an all-around dynamo. Kendall was the rock that kept the beat going and may have had my favorite voice of the three. Mia on guitar was, well, if you replaced the schoolboy suit with a flower print dress, she basically embodied the soul and the chops of Angus Young, down to playing the exact same guitar. She played something in the realm of punk, blues, and heavy metal and owned that stage as if she was already on the cover of Guitar World. And I know for a fact that one of the editors of that very mag reads this blog, so MAKE THIS HAPPEN.
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Dream Wife’s instrumental core of Alice Go on guitar, Bella Podpadec on bass, and the man who is sadly missing from all the promo shots, Alex Paveley, gently pushing into the title track from Social Lubrication. Alice moves around like an aggressive, smiley bee practically- never staying still and putting her all into every move. Bella plays bass like she’s in the middle of a wrestling match, almost fighting the instrument while playing it and doing all sorts of flips and crawls and I think they even managed a half-nelson without skipping a beat. Then frontwoman and all-around rock n roll hero Rakel Mjöll thundered onto the stage bringing the already lively song to its full disco-punk glory. The full band brought it to the next level with the thunderous “Hey Heartbreaker,” pushing the normally stoic San Francisco crowd into a full sweaty, dancey glory! (Except for one insanely tall man right up front who seemed to only care about staying up front. More on him later.)
I would love to go through each song and tell you why it was glorious, but I need to show *some* restraint. So I’ll just highlight the magic. “Hot (Don’t Date A Musician)” in all its spoken word, stream of conscious rambling was even funnier live, especially the warning about dating bartenders having to be abruptly altered since, well, the bartenders at Bottom Of The Hill are great and you should be honored to date them. During “Orbit,” possibly the most beautiful song ever written about both platonic and romantic love, Mjöll made eye contact with me and could see that I was singing along with every word beneath my mask and shared the microphone with me for a few lines (and now my life is complete). “SPORTS!” was much like it was on their 2020 live album, IRL, with Mjöll splitting the audience into Alice and Bella’s sides and forcing us to “battle” by screaming. (SPOILER: Everybody won!)
OK. Back to that one super tall dude. I’m a cis/het male. I’ll admit it. I’m big and hairy. I was also at the front because I wanted to be close and I’m only 5’7″. The front was oddly mostly men that got their first. However, Rakel made the command to have all the “bad bitches and short bitches” come to the front. So *most* of the men ceded their spots on the lip of the stage, and I thought it was great. I loved seeing the short people get where they belong, and I was able to dance with the masses, which was stupid fun. I almost even jumped into the moshpit. BUT THAT 6’5″ GUY STAYED RIGHT UP DEAD CENTER, MOSTLY PLAYING WITH HIS PHONE AND NOT GIVING HIS SPACE UP TO THE SHORTER FOLKS AS REQUESTED. I’ll admit, I don’t know his situation. I never talked to him. There may have been a logical and rational reason for this, but at the time I just felt judgmental. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing there, and I had just to let it go.
Near the end of the set, Rakel made a lovely speech about growing up in Santa Clara and how, despite living in England and spending years in Iceland, she really considers Santa Clara to be an important part of who she became. She also discussed how magical Bottom Of The Hill is (something that I agree with wholeheartedly), and it truly is one of the great SF venues.
The show ended with three songs that almost blended right into each other: the seemingly autobiographical “Curious” (I know the bit about her grandma is true), “Who Do You Wanna Be” and closed with a sweaty, extended fury of “F.U.U.” that included special appearances by Buzzed Lightbeer on stage to, well, to paraphrase the lyrics “Fuck u up.” (Gabi *almost* knocked a monitor on the floor that, happily, giant guy was able to keep on the stage)
Oh, man. Did I do this live show justice with the written word? Absolutely not. This is the kind of show that I’d want to relive every night of my life, and I don’t think I’d ever get bored. I hope to god they come back next year so I can buy tickets for all of my friends and we all party crazy hard and lose about 20 pounds in pure sweat together.
