I would like to preface by saying: Why the hell did I not know of this band? While it did turn out that I actually knew one of their songs from before – Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good) – I didn’t know that song was theirs. Basically, when Morten asked me along I had no idea what I was going to. So how on Earth have I missed this awesome rock band, with a female singer who’ll pure-attitude the pants off any male in the business?

A bit of background: Skunk Anansie was formed in 1994, split up in 2001 and reformed in 2009. They have released four studio albums and one best-of collection. Tonight was the first time they played in Norway in eleven years.

The warm-up act was The Virginmarys, a relatively new band who’s just released their debut record, and who have apparently been hailed as “the new Led Zeppelin”. I’m not sure I’d go quite so far, but they were very talented and I enjoyed their heavy, bluesy rock music. I also bought their CD, and they all signed the sleeve for me which was very nice.

The main act can only be described as fantastic. I enjoyed it from the first song (which was Yes It’s Fucking Political from their second album Stoosh). Loud, angry and hard rock music tends to make me happy, and Skunk Anansie displayed plenty of all three, though  there was the occasional ballad. It was the last show of the tour, which means they made a pretty big deal out of the whole thing and seemed to have a lot of fun with it. A lot of people say the last show of a tour is always the best. I’ve been to three last-shows-of-the-tour (including this one), and they’ve all been amazing, so in my experience there’s definitely some truth to that. I’m not sure whether my favourite moment was Skin breaking out the theremin or taking a walk out across the crowd. I mean, really, crowd surfing takes quite a bit of attitude in and of itself, but crowd-walking? Absolutely mad! I love it!

I have, it would seem, found a new idol. Skin impressed the shit out of me! At first she seemed a bit weak, perhaps, I thought… Like she hadn’t quite found her body yet. Maybe she was nervous, who knows… But very soon she just turned it around and put on one of the most impressive vocal performances I have ever seen.

Female rock singers are rare enough, but one with that much attitude, talent and raw power… I’ve never seen or heard anything like it, she rocks my world just by existing.

For the final number, we managed to somehow make it all the way over to the mixing desk, where we discovered the schedule for the show was lying quite unguarded. So we swiped it before we left. A bit of memorabilia is always fun.

On the way out we stopped by the merch stand and bought t-shirts, and the previously mentioned The Virginmarys CD. My t-shirt says, “It takes blood and guts to look this cool, but I’m still just a cliché” which is, I am told, the title of one of the songs from their first album. I just thought it was a cool phrase…

Now I’m thinking I should cover one of their songs for my dissertation… Sing a song actually written for a female voice for once.