KITTIE

5.13.00
Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY

As rain-soaked New Yorkers scrambled into cabs across the city, tension and excitement swell behind the doors of Bowery Ballroom. Fists fly and words are exchanged among the restless crowd until KITTIE drummer, Mercedes Lander, signals the beginning of the night's pandemonium with the first biddabap of her sticks. And as the stage lights flare on, the four fashionably dressed, barely-legal lasses (average age 17) from Canada begin their much-hyped sonic assault.

The floor explodes upon the first metallic thump-thump, sending bodies surfing overhead as the ladies shake the room with their own brand of ham-fisted jailbait metal. Though front woman Morgan Lander (Vocals/Guitar), toggles between a raucous death-metal yell and a sarcastically saccharine sweet croon, and guitarist Fallon Bowman (Guitar/Vocals) exudes rock star confidence well beyond her years, KITTIE don't seem quite so ready for the big time. But the black t-shirt clad, mostly male metalheads colliding across the pit didn't seem to notice the occasional looks of terror that crossed the fresh faces on stage.

Imagine being a 16 or 17-year-old female rocking several hundred headbangers in New York City - how could one not freak out? Looking nothing short of terrified, bassist Talena and drummer Mercedes do their best, staring blankly through the back wall into some unknown Chinatown destination in true slacker fashion, fumbling with the dark, staccato rhythms that won the band a coveted spot on this summer's Ozzfest. The characteristically uneven sound at the Bowery isn't much help, either, as Talena's clumsy thumping washes out much of the higher tones, and all but drown out the raunchy, crushing guitar work Bowman exhibits on Kittie's debut, Spit. It isn't the tightest rock rhythm section ever heard, but you have to give props to these gutsy teens.

Besides a few uncertain moments in the first half of the show, KITTIE have the crowd in their paw. The cadre of oversized male fans shouting along with the pretty young things throughout the set keep the cat calls to a minimum, proving that, unlike certain other female "artists" in their age group, KITTIE may just have nine lives.

This review originally appeared on Gigmania.com