The Donnas @ Alex's Bar 9/15/07

Yes, that's right, I have a Donnas album. That damn song "Take It Off" was so stuck in my head and the lyrics were so funny that I ended up just buying Spend The Night, even though the girls had clearly changed a bit from the straight Ramones sound they had when I heard them years ago on the ubiquitous Rodney on the Roq. I got invited by friends to catch their show with The Dollyrots at Alex's Bar in Long Beach, and was further surprised to see how much more AC/DC or hell, Poison, The Donnas are than punk rock. Guitarist Allison Robertson even kind of looks like Bret Michaels to me, with her long messy blond hair, cut-off sleeves, and big bottom lip. She is amazing though, and capable of some staggering shredding, in a way that I've gotta say I couldn't hear on that last album, or in the new tracks on their myspace. (Except a little on "Don't Wait Up For Me". But there isn't much of their energy in their recordings, this time or on Spend The Night. Everything I've heard is pretty tame.) They put on a great live show though, almost as cocky and obnoxious a bunch of rock stars as any 80s hair band, (which is totally fun to see in girls that are still so damn young and petite), so that's a shame it doesn't come across on the albums.

Singer Brett Anderson had a lot of generic-sounding lines for the crowd, (you know, the old "How's everybody doing tonight?"), but she did make me laugh out loud when she mentioned it was Saturday and threw in, "Of course every day is Saturday for us." It was so casually bratty, it was kind of brilliant. ...It also kinda stung.

The Dollyrots were pretty fun, although singer Kelly Ogden has such a smug, baby voice live that it's kinda grating after awhile. And the single "Because I'm Awesome", with lines like "I'm naturally deodorized", just made me feel old. Like I needed a big pink bow with a Paul Frank skull in it, and it wasn't about to happen.

Photo by Zloz via The Donnas myspace