When the news first hit that a reformed version of The Slits had emerged and were back in the recording studio and onstage after an absence of 25 years, many an ear pricked up in excitement. Australian ears were practically on fire when the first Australian tour was announced, which included an appearance at the Golden Plains Festival. For their final performance in Oz at the Gaelic Club, a healthy ragtag of punters had turned out to witness firsthand the many-fabled uproarious magic of this seminal female-driven band.
The all-important warm-up duties were left to Sydney outfit, Teenagers In Tokyo and Japanther, a noisy duo hailing from Brooklyn, New York City. The Teens’ raced through their setlist but failed to truly engage with the audience as the lead vocalist was occupied with dancing and prancing whilst the rest of the band looked in every direction except for the crowd’s. Japanther on the other hand were constantly nattering with the audience between every slice of their bass, drums and sample-generated fuzz rock, or in their own words, “environmental rock ‘n’ roll”. The mixing was especially atrocious and whilst it unfairly punished the Teens’ set, for Japanther it was like their third band member, aiding them to resurrect the spirit of great noise merchants of yore like The Slugfuckers and The Boredoms.
The moment had arrived for the now 6-piece Slits to grace the stage – on drums was German ex-beauty queen, Anna Schulte, with guitarists NO and Adele Wilson, backing vocals by Hollie Cook (daughter of Sex Pistols’ Paul Cook) and original members Tessa Pollitt on bass guitar and Ari Up on lead vocals. The band immediately launched into classic Slits numbers like ‘New Town’, ‘FM’ and a unique version of that reggae standard, ‘Man Next Door’ (popularised in the mainstream by Massive Attack). Resplendent in fluorescent clothing (of which there were three costume changes!) and very natty dreads, Ari was the prime focus of the band’s performance with her constant booty shaking, Pocahontas-like yowling and non-stop microphone-sharing with the crowd. She also proudly declared, “We’re a tribal group not a band” and conducted spontaneous Slits-focused pop quizzes with correct answers rewarded with reggae and Ragga Queen Mad-dusa (aka Ari Up) vinyl prizes.
Various audience members were pulled onto the stage at different times to bop along to favourites like ‘Shoplifting’ and new favourites like ‘World of Grown-ups’, an original by Ari’s previous band, The True Warriors. Amusingly, Ari warned these fans with “don’t mess with Tess” as she is the one armed with the Slits bass but failed to mention her potentially lethal martial arts expertise. An additional Warriors track given rebirth in the Slits world is ‘Kill Them With Love’ – a sparse yet heavily reggae-inflected tune with obligatory loping bassline and a soulful refrain. Halfway, the show has slowly transformed into a dancehall and roots session with Ari toasting often over the laidback grooves in her special hybrid of German and Jamaican speech. At one point though, one spacey audience member managed to provide the usually unflappable singer with her very own “freaky moment”, severely catching the slow security staff out in the process.
The production values for the entire show were virtually non-existent – yes, the mix did markedly improve with the arrival of the headliners but the stage lighting remained static, changing on just one occasion due to Ari Up’s insistence only. Bless The Slits though, for being nowhere near as complacent with the end of their set alternating between all-out rockers such as ‘Let’s Do The Split’ and more casual offerings like ‘Babylon Is Corrupt’. Ruled out was ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ despite the numerous screams for it, instead ‘Typical Girls’ was served up as the one and only encore with yet more audience members jumping around onstage. When the music stopped however, the band immediately disappeared taking the colour and energy with them and leaving the punters onstage looking highly confused. It’s so good to see that The Slits can still elicit such reactions!
