Spit Chewy, Fritz, Totty and Ruby Fields Bring the Grit to Lady Powers

What a fantastic night! What a heavy night! The much distortion and fuzz is still blowing through my ears. This was the second night of the Lady Powers week at UC and easily the grittiest. The female-fronted bands here were all swimming in distortion and grunge.

First act Spit Chewy blast onto the stage, commanding dancing and nodding. Their sound is a punchy and grabbing mix of power punk and surf rock that bled personality. The vocals and banter with the audience was pretty fearless in its delivery, sung and screamed vocals delivering a real hit fronting great riffs and choruses.

Source: Facebook. Photo by Laura Daniels.

After leaving a raw taste of energy, second act Fritz came through with a more mellow approach. Swaying somewhere between shoegaze and dream pop, the outfit took a few songs to warm up but came through in spades with layers upon layers of crispy guitars and silky synth lines. The band itself stayed true to the aesthetic of its shoegazing counterparts, a quiet and chilled band there to play and drown the bar in noise. By the end of set they’d well hit their stride and the crowd was loving it.

Third act TOTTY was by far the heaviest, the trio coming through with a straight grunge sound that even the meanest subwoofers cower from. The performance was extremely raw, the riffs blasted the audience into animals as they danced like mad. The banter between bandmates was hilarious, I’ll take note that terrible knock-knock jokes are a great way to buy time when tuning a guitar. These guys are definitely worth seeing live, their recorded tracks do no justice to their ferocity on stage.

Ruby Fields at UC Hub – Photo by Matt Sandford

Lastly the main event Ruby Fields took the stage with her signature grunge/rock sound and jokes with the crowd, even downing a beer to a roaring cheer. She and the band put on a great performance with particular props to her guitarist who was nailing everything he could, especially his soundscape slide guitar during Dinosaurs. But Ruby didn’t just stick to her usual catalogue this time, instead playing a few unreleased tracks and her The Church cover from Like a Version.

The night overall was a blast. Ruby and the rest of the acts brought their A-game to every performance, shaking the walls with grit and passion. The audience itself was a blast, getting rowdy and sweaty, chanting along with all the lines, failing limbs and thrashing like grunge was in its heyday again. Canberra has definitely been lucky to get such a great show like this.

By Callum Selmes