some girls
By anders pearson 19 Sep 2003
yesterday, gerard and brian had an extra ticket to get rid of, so i went with them to brave the hurricane and see Some Girls (basically Juliana Hatfield's new band) play at the knitting factory.
i've had bad experiences with the sound at the knitting factory before, but last night they did a pretty good job (ie, they didn't turn it up way too loud, like they did with Foetus).
the show was a really good time. there was an opening band (‘the unbusted’) who weren’t very good and played for 45 minutes, which was really about 25 minutes longer than they should have. we survived that with help from cheap beer.
the really nice thing about the knitting factory is that the performance space is tiny so even if you’re in the back of the room, you’re pretty close to the stage. juliana has an awkward, shy sort of stage presence that she somehow makes charming.
the set was nice and long but seemed short. i hadn’t really heard anything from Some Girls before; i’m just familiar with older juliana hatfield stuff. the new material is very similar to what you’d expect and very solid. i think juliana’s guitar playing has improved some. live, her guitar tone and style actually reminded me a bit of neil young’s work with crazyhorse but a little more controlled. that mixed in with her voice makes for an interesting sound.
we were really surprised that they didn’t play any of her older solo material. we kind of expected at least ‘sister’ or ‘spin the bottle’ or something thrown in, but it was all Some Girls material for the whole set.