Turning Gold with Rock and Roll: A Journey To Review of The Pretty Reckless

Film photo by Max Callahan

“There are very few people like me, who look upon rock and roll as a kind of religion.”

-Joan Jett, 1988

Without hesitation, this is exactly how Taylor Momsen, front woman of hard rock band The Pretty Reckless, embodies her passion for rock music today. The group triumphantly celebrated three sold-out shows at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City, and I had the privilege to embark on a journey to Night 2, and as incredible as it was in performance, so it was in commitment to getting there.

I’m from Massachusetts, so a little snow never (usually) hurt anybody up here. The night my roommates and I set off for the Big Apple though, Mother Nature almost pulled a fast one. While driving down the interstate, we slid on the ice and snow. Unable to see, frightened from the first slide and being closer to home than New York, we turned around and headed for home for at least some sleep. 

Something was eating away at me, heading back in the opposite direction. Every travel for live shows, for me, is like completing my own mission. A new lesson is learned with the new miles conquered. I needed to learn my lesson from The Pretty Reckless show. I couldn’t let this be the end. So banding together with my roommates (ABSOLUTELY PUN INTENDED), we set off on what I believe is my most devoted act to live music yet. At 5am we were all heading to bed, at noontime we all were waking up again, and by no later than 2:15 we were back on the road we had just tailspun on 14 hours before. 

photos by Kiki Gilligan

9:00p.m. Ticket: scanned. Coat: checked. Shot of tequila: smooth sailin’. Taylor Momsen? Hitting. The. Stage. The second that I saw her platinum blonde hair, my jaw dropped. Then I heard her soul capturing wails… and I seriously got emotional. This is a woman… a woman in the 21st century that has given her life to rock and roll. In an industry and specifically a genre in said industry such as music where it is so heavily influenced and run by men, it is so refreshing to see a woman get up on a stage and use her undeniable talent to not only entertain but also remind audiences that this field is not a game just for the dudes. Oh, yes, chicks can sure as hell be rockstars too. It’s also important to note that it isn’t even just her talent that wowed me for years to come, it was the sense of control she had on that stage: obvious to navigate that sheis the focal point and she knew all eyes were on her. She grabbed that power by the balls and showed everyone that her place in rock and roll is for real. As the focal point of the performance, Taylor had a really beautiful way of connecting with the audience. She told stories, engaged us by taking a vote of where we were all from, playfully bickered with her instrumentalists, she was an act from the moment she walked on stage until the moment the show was over. 

One piece of the show I really had respect for and loved was the use of sound cues, or soundbites throughout the set. As a now ex-theatre student, it’s now more prevalent to me than ever that you can always leave theatre, but theatre will never leave you. Most of us first experienced Taylor Momsen as little Cindy Lou Who in Jim Carrey’s live action ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ and then afterwards as Jenny Humphrey in ‘Gossip Girl.’ After watching evidence that Taylor and her band still pay tribute to clips from films, shows, and other performances by encorporating them into the set, whether as an intro or outro to a number, was something so promising for my own past self to experience. It was a unique interpretation for a rock show, and electrifying to witness as I never knew what sound bite was coming next. 

Film photo by Max Callahan

The band behind Taylor shocked me way more than I had expected them to. Aside from Momsen on vocals, The Pretty Reckless is composed of Mark Damon on bass, Ben Phillips on lead guitar and backing vocals, and Jamie Perkins on drums. I really loved watching the way this group communicated, musically, in front of an audience. There were moments throughout the show where Momsen would leave the stage, allowing Damon and Phillips to come together and literally play off each other’s backs. It was super fun to watch how much fun they had on stage playing together. Phillips can shred to melt your face off and Damon has iconic moves as he plays that make it just about impossible to take your eyes away. I loved hearing the contrasting vocals Phillips provided underneath and aside Momsen’s. Their voices coincide so beautifully together to create some of the most haunting hard/metal rock music of our generation. Perkins, their drummer, was a little more mysterious though, which I thought added an extra layer to the band. Undeniable talent he has, but I also don’t think I ever saw his face, which ironically, worked for me. I didn’t even need to. He made his presence perfectly known in his drumming all night long, especially in his kickass solo that lasted almost 10 minutes. 

Now having been on the first of soon-to-be many crazy journeys that The Pretty Reckless will send me on, I am more than ready for the next. This show was also a huge check off of my bucket list as a fan: to go to New York City as my own person, without my family, and to see a show with my roommates. As we walked out of the Bowery, into the bitter cold and walked down the streets of Manhattan, full of glee, I gazed up at all the buildings in the night sky and knew this was only the beginning of trips to the city I’d catch for some good rock and roll. The Pretty Reckless have already announced a return date to my area, amongst other festivals later this year, and I will be doing whatever I can to witness that bottle blonde babe, Taylor Momsen, wail in my face again. This new 2020’s era of TPR is so kickass to watch evolve and if you haven’t given their latest albums, ‘Death By Rock And Roll’ and ‘Other Worlds’  a listen yet, I would highly recommend doing so. As a female, I have found so much liberation within their last two releases, and seeing them live finally made the adoration for the entire band come full circle. If our world is looking to fierce femmes like Miley Cyrus and Hayley Williams to carry on the torch of kickass music and believing in the power of your own voice, then Taylor Momsen sure as hell is right up there with them. The next wave of rock and roll is here, and Momsen is one of the leaders of the pack. I can’t wait to see where The Pretty Reckless goes with all of this momentum next. 

“𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐡 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫 

𝐖𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐝 

𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 

𝐈'𝐦 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐨𝐥𝐝, 𝐈'𝐦 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐨𝐥𝐝”

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SHOW REVIEW: Roger Waters' This Is Not A Drill Tour

When I was 15, I fully submerged myself into the first classic rock group I had ever been enthralled in: Pink Floyd. I remember shortly after watching The Wall as a freshman in high school, I wanted to listen to everything I possibly could that had Pink Floyd in the credits. Enamored was an understatement. My brain was turned inside out by seemingly legends, but it wasn’t until late 2019, when I was 19 years old, that I realized I could see one of these so-called legends with my very own two eyes, before, certain, I’d never be able to witness them at all. 

An old high school friend of mine reached out to me before the pandemic even broke out, igniting my phone with gratuitous messages about Roger Waters performing at the TD Garden in Boston for his This is Not a Drill tour. Immediately, I was invested, no matter where we were sitting, what the price of our seats were, or anything in between; I needed to see this show. We had our tickets in no time, but due to the COVID lockdown in 2020 and more exacerbations in 2021, we, along with everyone else, were forced to wait to come together. 

Finally, July 12, the two and a half year anticipation was over. The day was here, the full circle moment was arriving. Getting to our seats and locating the stage “in the round,” or, in the center of the stadium, I was already itching to know what was to come. I knew what I was about to witness was not going to be like any other. 

Man oh man, was I f***ing right. 

I’ve seen a lot of shows in my life, many different artists. I was the recipient of a Make A Wish and chose to meet a band with that wish, that’s how much music means to me. But I have NEVER seen a show like This is Not a Drill.

As the show began, the intricate T-shaped stage sized flat screens, blanketing over that same shaped stage to keep the set a complete mystery, started to rise above all of us within the stadium, revealing a very specifically designed and epic center-stadium stage. These screens hung from above the stage all evening, displaying animations, real life images of our world, and many political outcries throughout. I felt as if I was in a very personal reprise of the 21st century version of the Wall. At the top of the show, Roger’s introduction to the gig consisted of him informing concert goers if they’re “one of those ‘I love Pink Floyd but I can’t stand Roger’s politics,’ f*** right off to the bar right now.” What I truly love about Roger Waters is that he is a public figure who never stands down when it comes to fighting for what he believes in: human rights. 

Equality rights. Refugee rights. Palestinian rights. Trans rights. Reproductive rights. All human rights. 

As an ex-theatre student, I value deeply when a musician is not only a musician, but a performer that creates a storyline for their audience to translate and respond to from the audience. And as Roger and his band played music from not only Pink Floyd, but also Roger’s solo work, the audience and Roger too, were filled with such great emotion. We laughed, we cried, we celebrated, yet we were also angry at the injustices happening in our world today. Some people walked out barely halfway through the night, but not I. My breath was taken away from the top to bottom of the show with his powerful and effective method of presenting his beliefs in performance mode. I thought it was brilliant, simply put. 

Here’s why I love rock music: it’s progressive. It IS political (for the most part), whether you’d like to believe that or not. It can be sweaty and dirty and sexy, but it can also be powerful enough and loud enough to change masses. I’m always blown away by the demographics of a rock concert, the people of all ages coming together for the very same reason, the music. I felt this way at this show, specifically. Imagine being almost 80 years old and still magnetizing the minds of human beings in their single digits. Talk about powerful! That is a Roger Waters show.  Through the music AND the visuals, Roger puts on the most progressively empowering show I have ever laid my eyes on. Not only was it progressive, it was so easily translated through all the imagery and texts he used for the screenplay above him. 

Having the privilege to hear Waters reminisce on the history and the rest of the members of Pink Floyd he helped bring together, a large section of the show was immensely dedicated to the triumph the psychedelic rock group brought to the music scene for decades. He paid tribute to his fellow bandmates as he displayed old photographs from the 60s and 70s during an epic rendition of Have A Cigar. Specifically moving, he reminded us all of the special bond he shared with his bandmate, friend, and co-founder of Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett as Roger performed Wish You Were Here to the almost 20,000 people in the stadium. What an absolutely moving part of this show that moved me to tears, and I’m sure most of the venue as well. Some other notable Pink Floyd tracks performed during the show that I was jumping out of my seat for were Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 3,  Sheep, Run Like Hell, Money, Us & Them, and Outside the Wall. 

What I found to be also extremely special was hearing Water’s writing amidst the lockdown, as he played us some verses from a song he wrote at the beginning of the pandemic, titled The Bar. This was really special because he has not recorded this track for release anywhere, it’s just something he’s been playing for people for the first time on tour this summer. Hearing my first interpretation of The Bar, along with witnessing the eyeopening images Waters had provided on the screens of our real world in current and past times, brought tears to my eyes. I had never envisioned this show to empower and move me so much, but I’m so glad that it did. This is a stance in using your voice that celebrities with any sort of power, all across the board of pop culture should be making. Roger Waters has and continues to make his stance known. 

I would also love to credit Roger Water’s fantastic band on this tour with him, because I’m sure all the attendees know as much as we all love Roger, these shows would not be possible with only him alone. This outstanding show could not have been performed without guitarists Dave Kilminster and Jonathan Wilson, guitarist/bassist Gus Seyffret, keyboardist/guitarist Jon Carin, organist Robert Walter, drummer Joey Waronker, backup singers Amanda Belair and Shanay Johnson, and saxophonist Seamus Blake. This group of incredibly talented people made this show seem to flow effortlessly and spotless, even down to the little backup singing choreography at the corners of the stage done by Belair and Johnson. The few saxophone solos of the night blew me away, and the core band made so many moments of the show, specifically Money and Us & Them unforgettable. It was clear to see the relationship forming and already formed within this group of people, and I especially loved as they all exited the stage together, Waters called out each band member to the stadium for a round of applause. 

Walking away from this show I was in awe from head to toe. If Roger Waters has the ability to perform until he’s 100, he will, and seeing his triumph, tears, humor, connectivity, and power right in front of me all night only proved this idea. Frankly, it was an absolute privilege and honor to witness his talent live. If I get the opportunity to see Roger Waters again, without a doubt I will be back. If you are somebody that enjoys creative expression, sticking it to the man and standing up for what you believe in, while getting the experience of a life long talent right before your eyes, you MUST see Roger Waters live. This show will go down in history as one of my favorites, and that’s a guarantee.