POP Montreal review: Babes in Toyland as powerful as ever

Babes in Toyland
The Rialto
September 19, 2015
Photos by Vitor Munhoz

It’s been awhile since I’ve enjoyed myself as much at a show as I did last Saturday when I saw Hand Cream, Cheap Wig, and Babes in Toyland at the Rialto. This is the first Babes tour since their breakup in 2001, and also featured new bassist Clara Salyer (replacing Maureen Herman). Babes in Toyland were a defining feature of the 90s punk landscape for me, so I was overjoyed when I heard that they were reunited, touring, and coming to Montreal. The audience seemed similarly stoked and best of all the band members themselves – especially Lori Barbero, the drummer for Babes – were endearingly enthusiastic, which gave the whole night a magical feeling of intimacy despite strong attendance and the fair size of the Rialto.

Hand Cream offered up some sweet, energetic pop with a post-punk-y vibe, complemented by memorably discordant keyboards. Then Cheap Wig came on and blew my ears and mind. I was in the bathroom when they started, and my first thought was “holy fuck that’s terrifyingly loud” – followed immediately by “HOLY FUCK THAT’S TERRIFYINGLY GOOD.” So I stuffed my ears with toilet paper and ran downstairs and up to the stage. The singer for Cheap Wig is nearly indescribable, but I’ll try: she had virtuoso control over her screaming vocalizations, and with her zero-fucks-given attitude and lyrics, wicked hard femme style, and powerful presence reminded me at various moments of late-70s-era Poly Styrene (X-Ray Spex), Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, Julie Ruin), and Rihanna. Their music was an assault of tight noise with no wave and industrial elements and the performance was – to quote Barbero – “fucking awesome.”

The awesome continued unabated, as Babes in Toyland were pretty much flawless. Kat (Bjelland, singer and songwriter for Babes) channelled an intoxicating combination of intense focus and slightly unhinged mania, and miraculously her voice sounds exactly the same now as it did on Fontanelle (1992) – the second studio album the band made, and the one I grew up on. They played songs from all three albums: Spanking Machine (1990), Nemesisters (1995), and Fontanelle. Clara looked über-chuffed to be there, Lori told jokes about pirates’ nuts as well as real anecdotes (including one incredibly heart-warming tale from an audience member who had related to Barbero that his grandma had seen Babes twenty years ago to the day), friends of the band ate their dinner and sang along from the balcony above, and Kat gyrated, kicked, screamed, and spit her way through a kickass set that I will never forget.