Warpaint at Brooklyn Made

Warpaint embraces femininity. One would think that with so many women playing in rock and pop bands today, more femininity would abound. While the feminine experience in the modern world is an infinitely expanding spectrum, this all-woman quartet captured and accentuated a musical screenshot of positive self-identification and empowerment.

Warpaint formed as an indie rock band in 2004 in Los Angeles, California. The band presently consists of original members Emily Kokal (vocals, guitar), Theresa Wayman (vocals, guitar), and Jenny Lee Lindberg (bass, vocals), with Stella Mozgawa on drums since 2009. Warpaint’s fourth and most recent studio album, Radiate Like This, was released on May 6, 2022.

Onstage at Brooklyn Made, Warpaint’s performance was a careful blend of lyrics articulating womanhood, empowerment and their interpersonal connections in the real world. The band supplemented this message with gentle vocals, swirling melodies, lush harmonies, propulsive percussion and dance-inducing rhythms. The overall sound leaned slightly on the edgy side, yet flowed brightly thanks to warm grooves and smooth musical interplay. The end result was simultaneously haunting and hypnotic.

Amid a set of dreamy, ambient sounds and feel-good pop waves, the four musicians at one point moved away from their formation to gather center-stage around a single standing microphone. Accompanied by one acoustic guitar, the four members harmonized on a stripped down version of “Melting.” To have one person sing the lyrics would have been powerful enough, but gang vocals turned the song into a unifying, universal commiseration.

Take off your raincoat

Baby, I want to touch the skin

The only way out from this cold unknowing

Is to radiate like this

'Cause you know my ways now

And you're making fire in our house

And it's melting, melting, melting me down

Rather than joining the riot grrl movement of the 1990s, Warpaint found its own path. Warpaint’s performance was less angry and aggressive than Bikini Kill‘s concert a couple of weeks earlier, for example. Warpaint expressed its frustrations and aspirations in a more sensitive and intellectual package. The message was soothing, determined, and seemingly welcomed by the mostly-female audience.

Setlist

1. Stars

2. Champion

3. Intro

4. Keep It Healthy

5. Hips

6. Hard to Tell You

7. Love Is to Die

8. Krimson

9. Melting

10. Stevie

11. Bees

12. New Song

13. Disco//Very

Encore:

1. I'm So Tired (Fugazi cover)

2. Elephants

3. Beetles

4. Send Nudes

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The Manhattan Beat covers New York City's live music circuit. All articles are written by Everynight Charley Crespo. All photographs are taken by Everynight Charley Crespo, except when noted otherwise. For a list of Manhattan venues that are presenting live music regularly, swing the desktop cursor to the right of the home page and click on the pop-up tab "Where to Find Live Music." For a listing of upcoming concerts for live audiences, visit The Manhattan Beat's August calendar.