With blonde wigs that are like Tina Turner channelling Dolly Parton channelling Sigue Sigue Sputnik, glittered faces and diamanté disco kitten boots, The SoapGirls – French born, South African sisters Mie and Millie Debray – are all dressed up and ready to rock. On bass, Mie has a perma-fixed grin on her face as she bounces along to ‘Liar’ – their opening salvo – eyes lit with laser like intensity.
They introduce themselves to tonight’s audience through distorted Vox before Millie fawns over her red lightning bolt guitar, bending and flexing like a carnivalesque contortionist during ‘Johnny Rotten’, pulling off a guitar solo which is no mean feat when you look like you could scuttle off like a crab at any moment!
After a couple more tracks Mie takes over lead vocals for the pogoing Go-Go’s surf pop of ‘She Don’t Wanna’ which gets the room jumping and pumping. Labelled predominantly as a punk band with hard rock leanings – which they demonstrate to full effect on the politically driven ‘Kill Breed’ with its barked German lyrics and ‘Broken Melody’ with Millie’s metallic growl – an evening in their company reveals a much more tender side. Songs are punctuated with Millie’s humanitarian speeches, urging people to live freely without restriction or prejudice. As if to emphasise this need for liberation and equality, Mie removes her top for ‘In My Skin’, inviting everyone to follow suit, whilst her sister gets off the stage and prowls around the crowd growling like a panther. At the back, a sweat-soaked torso is testament to the drummer’s hard graft in banging out the beats.
‘Bad Bitch’ invites a selection of belly-out blokes to come on stage in a comical holiday camp entertainment kind of way and sing the lyrics, the girls less Red Coats, more No Coats. The huge guitar chug of ‘Breathe’ calls for one last performance, with Millie heading into the crowd and pulling off a series of acrobatic moves providing the climax of a terrifically visceral experience. Proof that they are so much more than just pretty glittered faces.
Check out our interview with The SoapGirls here!