There’s a lot of pink down the side of the O2 Ritz. You’d almost think there was a dress code for this particular show, and if you’re unable to meet it? Well, fret not, because there’s a cart selling pink cowboy hats at the side of queue. It’s not the kind of attire that one might associate with an alternative show, but hearing that the artist is called Scene Queen might recalibrate some of those expectations just a tad. Plus, this has been a pretty long time coming. Hot Singles In Your Area came out over a year ago; last year’s show supporting PVRIS met an ill fate when the venue flooded barely an hour before it was due to start. If the people of Manchester want to dust off their best pinks for the pioneer of bimbocore on her long-overdue return, what’s to stop them?
Of course, with as singular a subject as bimbocore is, it’s not necessarily going to translate to a full line-up outside of a faint trickle. Lake Malice, for instance, have little explicit crossover outside of an alt-metal core, but they also played with anyone and everyone else this year, so why not stick them on here, too? And you can see the nonstop year’s worth of tightening in full effect. Their troupe of backing dancers might have been stashed away until next festival season now, but between Alice Guala’s faultless mesh of singing, belting and screaming, and Blake Cornwall continuing to indulge in hyperactive rockstar stage-playing, it’s hard to complain about what we get. Even when this is effectively the stock setlist they’ve plied for months, the likes of Scatterbrain and the literal floor-shaker Stop The Party show exactly why Lake Malice’s ingratiation into new rock’s top bracket has been so steadfast. Let’s have a full album soon, though, please?
As for who’s to follow—an artist with the extremely on-the-nose name of GIRLI—this is clearly what the bimbocore lovers want. Some frankly ear-splitting crowd reactions are plentiful, and despite being this bill’s most stylistically disparate player, the vibe is right on the money. This is the exact environment and audience where showing off working vibrator earrings would etch you in group-chat mythology for life. But besides any of that, GIRLI is simply a fully-rendered alt-popstar in her own right. She’s expressive and vivacious in a way that she can keep up throughout, channelled sufficiently into the jumpy, jerky bass and motormouthed delivery of Hot Mess, and some emotive balladry on Friday Night Big Screen that really takes flight in its final chorus. And with the big pop-rock jumper I Really Fucked Up directing its vitriol towards transphobes (including JK Rowling, who GIRLI calls out by name), it wraps the final bow on a star that, in the right eyes, has her icon status cemented.
You wanna talk icons, though? Hannah Collins has quite literally dubbed herself ‘Scene Queen’; it comes with the territory. Again, she’s such a singular entity in the current metal landscape, to where it’s difficult to see where in the intersection of nu-metal calamity and horny Y2K girly-pop is left to monopolise. It’s especially true onstage, the place where Collins has always thrived the most. As a personality, she’s effortlessly entertaining with just how many quotable lines she’s got loaded and ready to fire out. Before Finger just three songs in, she comes out with “You guys have heard of Brat Summer; it’s officially Sucking And Fucking Fall”, if you’re wondering where exactly the tone lies. There’s an unquestionable lightness to it all, as if it weren’t obvious enough that, at it’s core, this is supposed to be fun. Collins is clearly revelling in every second she’s got onstage, even breaking out a little line-dance / two-step fusion to fit MILF’s country leanings.
If there’s a nitpick to be made, it’s that more of Collins’ sonically diverse cuts would’ve benefited from being here. The hardstyle remix of Barbie Girl that serves as walk-on music is a tease of the trashier, poppier side of the Scene Queen catalogue that unfortunately gets pushed aside. Like, it is a shame that songs like Stuck or PEG or even Whips And Chains aren’t here to enjoy the rapture that’d inevitably greet them. Still, you can hardly fault what is here, as the low, heavy slam of BDSM kicks off with its stride hit immediately, followed suit in confidence by Pink Push-Up Bra and Pink Panther. At least there’s a bit of disco glitz to new song Platform Shoes (described by Collins as “the perfect chance to dance like someone’s stepfather”), and its extra-propulsive thrums really establish it as a great new piece for a set like this.
But once again, it’s hard to see a situation where the personality of the whole event isn’t head-and-shoulders able literally every other factor, even out of its platform shoes. It’s one of those instances where a simpatico crowd really helps to drive things along, such as how the coined ‘twerkle pit’ is now such a set standard on Pink G-String. Collins may prompt it, but the Scene Queen faithful know the score, and you feel the energy flowing throughout. There’s an interlude where Collins leads an induction into her Bimbo Beta Pi sorority—a practice of bringing people together that’s more wholesome than the cult initiation she infers it to be—but you get the impression that it’s more of a formality. In a diverse crowd as this, no one feels misplaced or out of step. If nothing else, the tradition of yelling out a certain band’s name during 18+, a song about predators in the industry, is understood and adhered to by all. (Not to implicate who said band might be or anything, but it sure is an all time low for whoever it is.)
At the end of the day, it’s not as if a show like this requires a seriously taxing foundation. It’s Friday night and the bimbocore bash has rolled into town—that’s enough. And for the sort of brash, kitschy, unapologetically unfiltered metal that’s offered, Collins delivers in spades. It’s rare that a performer in alternative spaces will lean this far into the identity they’ve crafted for themselves, and that’s precisely why it works. Scene Queen is, quite literally, like nothing else around it, nor should it be. Something as nailed-on in its appeal as this deserves to go undiluted for a long, long time.
Words by Luke Nuttall
Photos by Maryleen (Instagram / Website)
