LIVE REVIEW: Mannequin Pussy, Shortstraw., Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow, 19/05/2025
Photo Credit: Maryleen Guevara (20th – Academy 2, Manchester)
Philadelphia punk-indie rockers Mannequin Pussy dropped by the UK for a few live shows with Glasgow being the first stop on the tour that also included Manchester, Bristol as well as the Wide Awake Festival and Bearded Theory. The gig was originally pencilled in for Saint Luke’s in the east end but ticket demand saw this move to Queen Margaret Union just off the busy Byres Road in the west end of the city with the gig being sold out for weeks.
Shortstraw. with the full stop is the support for the Mannequin Pussy UK tour, we emphasise the importance of the full stop as Shortstraw are also a South African indie-rock band. We didn’t know too much about Shortstraw. before the show with only three releases to date – Sods Law, Good For Nothing and Dot Cotton – with the latter written about the late famous Eastenders actress! Vocalist Erin West is a cool figure on the stage tonight and gets the crowd onside straight away with her infectious stage energy, they are pigeon-holed as being pop-poetry but the Coventry duo are much more than that, we can even hear elements of Ska in the music and why not as Coventry is the proper home of Ska. There is a big downside to the performance though, the background music to the tracks is set way too high making it difficult to follow the lyrics, to be honest the ears could have started bleeding at any point! 6/10
The fourth studio release from Mannequin Pussy is the I Got Heaven album that was released back in March 2024, the band have been touring non-stop since then including a five-star performance at Glastonbury last June, that’s when we decided to put them on the ‘must see live’ list. Lets get the band introductions out of the way first of all, they are led by the charismatic figure that is Marisa Dabice who also plays guitar, Maxine Steen (guitar), Colins ‘Bear’ Regisford (bass), Carolyn Haynes (keyboards) and a late change on drums from Kaleen Reading to Lucy Ritter who is the drummer for Chappell Roan with Kaleen taking a step back to recover from illness. Softly from I Got Heaven is the perfect start to the set, they would eventually play nine from that release, if that wasn’t energetic enough then Sometimes takes it to the next level, this is raw punk energy at it’s finest as the mosh pits open for the night, up in the balcony it’s a little less rowdy.
Four songs in and bassist Colins Regisford is already wiping the sweat away during Control and no wonder, the intensity from this chap is delightful to watch throughout the night while Missy Dabice is singing about a night out during Drunk II as the lyrics suggest “I’ve been going out almost every night/I’ve been drinking everything I can get my hands on/I pretend I have fun”. I Don’t Know You is an early contender for the best of the set, the keyboard intro sets the scene for a track that soon explodes into life with the grungy guitar playing from Steen & Dabice taking the energy levels up a couple of notches. We seem to be in the wildest part of the set already as Loud Bark has the crowd screaming the chorus back to the stage “I got a loud bark, deep bite”, upstairs we feel like jumping out of the chair as this is a personal favourite but after looking around seeing that everyone else is sitting like ‘mannequin dummies’ we decide a loud chant (bark?) is good enough! Downstairs it looks like mayhem now and the intensity gets even higher with I Got Heaven, the band’s most streamed song and one that has anti-christianity themes, this band don’t hold back as the controversial lyrics prove “and what if we stopped spinning, and what if we’re just flat/and what if Jesus himself ate my fucking snatch?” The raw energy of this track is just top class.
The 2021 EP Perfect is well represented track wise with Control, Perfect and the excellent Pigs Is Pigs being short but sweet moments from the set, ‘Bear’ gets a moment on vocals with Pigs Is Pigs, it may only last two minutes but is an outstanding contribution to the set. We have the usual moment where the crowd are encouraged to scream out all their negativity while the male section of the audience are orchestrated by Dabice to scream “pussy” that reminds us of the BBC TV coverage from Glastonbury last year when they did the same, much to the annoyance of the BBC who found it too politically correct to even have the proper name of the band advertising them as Mannequin P! There is a more serious part where Missy decries the political leadership around the world while wars rage and the crowd react well to this as chants of “Free Palestine” reverberate around the venue. The sixteen-track set ends with Emotional High and Romantic from the 2016 Romantic album, it is the perfect end to a memorable set that has Cher hit Believe being sang by everyone as they left the venue.
After the short UK tour they move on to Europe for more shows, eventually making their way back home to the USA for a more lengthy tour, do this band ever stop touring? We would love to see Mannequin Pussy perform at the iconic Barrowland Ballroom next time they hit the dear green city, it would be a fitting venue for their high-energy shows. 10/10
Written by: Alan Brown
