Twice last year -- at one of the final Titus Andronicus shows at Maxwell's and when they co-headlined Asbury Lanes with Waxahatchee -- I saw people experience Screaming Females for the first time. Both times, the responses were open mouths, shaking heads, and incredulous stares. The band's live shows are truly something to behold as guitarist / vocalist Marissa Paternoster lets loose with absolutely everything she has. The rhythm section of Jarrett Doherty and King Mike keeps things speeding down the rails without ever allowing them to fly off completely.
As much as I love the band's studio albums, they're different from the live experience. It's not really possible to capture the energy and spontaneity of a live show on a studio recording, though 2012's Ugly comes pretty close. Recorded over two nights at Chicago's Hideout, Live at The Hideout is the first official document of the Screaming Females' live show. Screaming Females once again tapped legendary engineer Steve Albini (Ugly) to handle the recording duties, and the result is something that all of those concert videos and radio station live, in-studio performances on YouTube can't hope to match.
The record opens relatively quietly, the recognizable guitar riff of "Leave It All Up To Me" taking shape out of some dreamy noodling, before exploding into its 14-song, 63-minute tour through Screaming Females' discography. "Foul Mouth," a 90s-inspired 4-minute track from the band's first LP, gets expanded here to a 6-minute plus alt / punk jam. Similarly, Power Move track "Lights Out" gets transformed from its 4-minute album version to a 7-minute freak-out.
Screaming Females aren't a jam band, though. Some tight, well-crafted pop songs are lurking underneath all the noise and Paternoster's ferocious guitar playing. Ugly tracks "Extinction" and "It All Means Nothing" stay relatively close to their recorded versions and reveal that the New Brunswick trio are just as capable of a tight, well-honed delivery as they are of soaring improvisations.
Live at The Hideout closes with a scorching version of another early Screaming Females track. About two minutes into "Boyfriend," Paternoster's soloing is replaced by the drone of feedback as she screams lyrics into the mic. The band also employed seven cameras during the recording of Live at The Hideout, and -- from a video released earlier this week -- we can see that Paternoster ends the set by surfing the crowd, bleeding from her chin before returning to the stage to participate in the song's final cacophony and, ultimately, sending her guitar out among the crowd.
Screaming Females play Asbury Lanes this weekend in support of Kathleen Hanna's Julie Ruin. It promises to be an epic performance. Unfortunately, the show is sold out. If you had your heart set on going, then Live at The Hideout will either be a boon to you or a very difficult listen. It gives you an uncanny sense of what you'll be missing.
Screaming Females: Live at The Hideout is out now on Don Giovanni Records.
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