Opening for METZ, White Lung, a Canadian punk band fronted by platinum blonde Mish Way, was a sort of female answer to METZ’s ferocious sound. Despite the fact that their music was more straightforwardly and traditionally punk, Way’s commanding and aggressive tone, as well as her charismatic figure on stage, she was all I could look at during their set. Dressed in black, she was screaming in the high-positioned mic, towering the audience and making a lot of these intimidating finger pointing to people.
The almost all-girl band (there was actually one guy for three girls) was playing a fast and stormy music, with guitar and bass in constant assaults, speedy drumming, and aggression all over the place, but each song had obvious poppy hooks, and, standing on her high heels, Way was riding the storm with boldness and confidence. First thing I said to myself is, nobody should mess up with this woman, she is gonna eat you alive at the first occasion! I checked the lyrics, and you know what? I was right! ‘Wipe that look from your face/ I'll drop you back from where you came’ she yelled in ‘Take the Mirror’, ‘You're a dead horse riding/ I'm out for you’, she continued in ‘Glue’, or even worst, ‘I'll scrub your liver clean until I die’ she screamed in ‘Bunny’. Either this girl has had a series of really bad relationships, or she is a natural fury! Nevertheless, the guy on my right seemed to appreciate every song and each of her move, he took the setlist after the show and left, he was there for her! So I guess her bloodthirsty feminism totally works for some!
She was an enraged woman declaring war to everyone, with her long high-pitch howls, she was a sort of Pat Benatar meets Hole’s Courtney Love, and she was incarnating the bad girl that we all want to be one day but will never be. I actually read that Way admires Love for being ‘so strong and unforgiving and mouthy’, but also ‘upfront, and exposed and vulgar’… ‘I think it’s crazy, but I admire that’ she said in an interview. I get what she means, but I wouldn’t take this psycho woman as an example of bold feminism, but I disgress. In any case, all the songs they performed exulted this same boldness she admires, and most of them are actually featured on their last album entitled ‘Sorry’. But I can tell you, there was absolutely nothing this woman was sorry about.
Setlist
I Rot
Thick Lip
Take The Mirror
Hunting Holiday
Glue
Bunny
Two seen
Bag
The Bad way
St. Dad
Two of you
