Firstly a brief, pre-ramble preface free from prejudice. I need to say this, but each time I have checked recently nothing has changed. I am still male through and through. These, therefore, are the views of a thoroughly male man who is not a woman and has no plans to become one. I do, however, have a deep-seated appreciation for women, and especially for strong women who make their mark in the world, for women who are gifted and talented, and for women who break boundaries and smash preconceptions of what women should and shouldn’t do. In light of this, I think that this year’s Festevol lineup in Liverpool was an incredible tribute to women and to girl power. There were all girl bands, a whole array of female fronted bands, along with some really outstanding female drummers, guitarists, bassists and keyboard players. Let me tell you: Hurricane RockChick is here and is gathering unstoppable momentum.

The tour de force was of course, Juliette Lewis, the actress-cum-rockhen from across the Atlantic, who is scarily powerful on stage. She held the jam-packed Camp stage spellbound in a state of bouncing euphoria with her band, The Licks, as she strutted and preened and rocked her way through a frighteningly powerful set of rock songs. She is a veritable tornado, the words she sings and speaks and screams and drawls are violent winds that buffet people into dancing aggressively and recklessly. I know, because I was there, and have the bruises to prove it. Juliette is the “Hard Lovin’ Woman,” (a recent documentary title) who loves life so much because she has been to hell and back and once famously said, “The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die.” Never one to shy away from publicity, she was sporting an I Love Brad Wilk tee shirt, a reference to the Rage Against the Machine drummer who is currently on tour with her and who she recently started dating. Her cover of Proud Mary was electrically charged, singalong rock n roll, her own songs like distorted, thrashing power tools. Today’s young rock pretenders surveyed the antics from the balcony in hushed admiration, until the whirlwind rockmance blew off to other climes and other cities.

The day was filled, of course with many other lesser, yet still powerful forces of nature, young women who are certain to gain momentum over the coming year and storm our indie weather maps.

There is now an array of gifted female photographers who are becoming celebrities in their own right, a girl force band of veritable zoom lens Spice Girls, who take incredible pictures as they tour the festival circuit. Ellen Offredy and Phoebe Fox have been present at virtually every gig I’ve been to in the last six months, hanging out with and snapping rock’s coming elite. Several times I’ve heard young women say that they want to be doing what these two, and others are doing.

So, I guess I should tell you about some of the other girl force winds that blew through the Holiday Camp and fanned the May Day Furnace flames.

I have written and tweeted so many times about Brighton’s little blonde drawling hurricane, Miss Izzy Bee of Black Honey (the whole band are awesome, by the way, but this post is about women). If she does not continue to become one of the most talked about musical phenomenons over the next few years, I will consume my proverbial hat- well I might eat the paper hat I got in my Christmas cracker last year. She has everything that rockdom craves: mesmerising stage presence; effervescent sex appeal; deep, penetrating, thought conundrumising lyrics; magical melodies that stick to your braincells like the glue of a spider’s web, till you realise you are trapped forever; her facial expressions take you through the weather of four seasons in the space of just minutes; but off stage she’s one of the most open and friendly rockettes I’ve met. Not scary at all. Honestly! Or is she just pretending that she’s not a psycho crim on the run in her own version of Thelma and Louise?

There were so many other acts that blew me off my feet, long before I could fall over after twelve hours of gig watching. The Orielles, for example, as I’ve written before, are a blast of glowing, sunny post-Halifax weather, shimmering surf rock on a bright sunny day, driving out the darkness of depression. Two thirds of the threesome are females of the species: Esmee, who sings sweet rock, at times not too far removed in style and tone from Sunflower Bean’s Julia Cumming, she of the psychedreamy NYC vocals. And then there is older sis’ Sid, who holds everything together with some wicked beats. The drumming in the jam that closes their set is a cyclonic throwback to the early days of rock, when musicians took the time to show you what they could do. It’s now over forty years on from then but Sid can do and Sid does, changing the tempo and the beat various times, and allowing the bass and guitars to strut their stuff in unrestrained majesty. The band are currently performing at Canada Music Week in Toronto, a thoroughly deserved foray into the top British music export industry.

Another two thirds female band with Canada in their sights are Feral Love, an incredibly creative and atmospherically charged electrical storm. They are blessed to have yet another truly talented drummer of pre-said female variety. I have seen three such drumming maelstroms in the last few weeks, all different, yet all intensely powerful timekeepers: Sid from the Orielles, Erin Gibson of Idle Frets, and Grace Goodwin of Feral Love. The last two are current LIPA students. Whatever is happening on Macca’s drum course, it is impressive and producing satisfyingly great drummers. Grace lived up to the band’s name with her feral drumming, which was unrestrained and wild, so much so that you couldn’t take your ears off it. Add to that some soul-piercing vocals, with and without effects, which perfectly convey the emotional intensity of the lyrics. Adele Emmas, formerly of Bird, channels the spirit of Kate Bush, Florence Welch and Hannah Read (all still alive by the way, so I don’t know how she does it!) and unleashes her own spirit in a seductive set of ethereal dreamscapes that leave you intrigued, bewildered, pensive and wondering why you have to wait so long to see them perform live again.

Also hotly tipped are five piece East End band, Pumarosa. Isabel is a vocally liberated singer in the tradition of the aforementioned Wuthering Heights singer. As she sings Priestess, it is like a tantric orgy in the open air at Woodstock as Celtic folk laments and dance beats lock limbs in a psychedelic sex jam. In Cecile there is something primitive and earthy about the folk dance rock fusion that allows you to drift into another dimension. Aptly labelled “industrial spiritual” they bring a driving hypnotic fusion of Mother Earth and Father City that is beguiling. Isabel’s wild hairbanging is the perfect visual backdrop for the driving musical wind that pushes the Beaufort scale to its limit.

Estrons frontwoman, Taliesyn Källström, was inevitably born with more lung capacity than most mere mortals. Not surprisingly, Estrons is Welsh for aliens and her singing, unleashed, blasts without apology from some distant planet in outer space and drops with a thud on the landing pad of your consciousness. It is stereotypically-Stereophonically even-powerfully Welsh. Drop, played recently by Phil Taggart is upbeat, with all the punk energy of the New York Dolls. “Be like your mother” she sings, “be like your father, be like your friends… be more like me! Turn off your phone…turn off your TV…turn off your feelings…be more like me.” It is  impossible to turn off your feelings while the Estrons are playing, nor is it possible to stand still, even for a second. Make A Man starts tentatively for a few brief seconds before the band is unleashed and the guitars and drums go hell for leather and the banshee lets loose: “I’ve got to make a man out of you. I’d like to make a man out of you.”   She wants the man but also struggles to respect his ways. Quite what that entails I can only guess but I’m sure the subject of the song would like her to make a man out of him, even if that means renouncing his misogynist ways. Up yours punk defiance drives the band to ground and takes them back up into orbit again.

On a day with so many bands and performances there were countless others who gained their plaudits: grunge rockers Bathymetry, for example, or quirky rockchicklet Zuzu. This was a day to celebrate the wealth of live musical talent that is currently on offer here, but possibly more so a day to watch with bated breath and excitement the onset of hurricane rockchick that is gathering unstoppable momentum as it hits these shores. Watch out! The girls are coming!

©Cre8ivation all words and photos