The Kills @ Royale, Boston MA 4/26/11

Well, we all know what's coming.... extreme reverence. I had seen Jaime and Alison the week before at Coachella, so what I'm about to say came as no surpise to me, but this show was by far the best I've seen from The Kills in my entire career as unrelenting superfan. It is hard to describe Alison Mosshart's live-show magnetism and unbelievable command of the audience's attention, let alone put into words the feeling of standing directly beneath her for the entire show. I find a lot of people fascinating, but rarely do I find anyone as inimitably badass and inspirational as I do her, a feeling that was only accentuated by her forceful grip on the mic stand, placing of one black boot on the speaker in front of my face, and leaning over to stare right into my eyes while singing songs like "DNA," "You Don't Own The Road," and "Heart Is A Beating Drum" off of their new album, Blood Pressures. Though it is to be expected that, after 10 years and 4 albums together, the duo have developed quite a knack (to say the least) for performing and writing, I have never seen anything like the relationship between these two incredible musicians. Sure, Jaimie does most of the instrumentation and production of their live sets (you should see his pedal board...it's insane), but the amazingly captivative performance they put on really proves them to be equally important in the band's appeal. I was also absolutely thrilled, too, with the incredible balance of new material and old on this tour; never would I have seen it coming that they would play "Fried My Little Brains" as their last song, but nothing could have made me happier. They also performed songs like "No Wow," "Pull A U," "U.R.A. Fever," and "Sour Cherry" off of their previous 3 records, which were incredibly well-received and appreciated by onlookers. I know that I never have anything even remotely critical to say about The Kills, but it's nice to be able to rely on my favorite band's unwavering ability to pull through and surpass my already high expectations each and every time I see them live, right? Check out my pictures from the show below, and definitely try and see them on the Blood Pressures tour. And, if you can't catch them this time around, I've heard rumours of a follow-up summer mini-tour in August! No promises though.