The Donnas Offer No Surprises, Only a Solid Show

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 2, 2007 5:30PM

The Donnas have finally transformed themselves into the female KISS, sans make-up (well, the Kabuki-inspired kind); the band excels at writing party songs, evoking bygone licks, and caring not one whit that there isn't an intelligent lyric in sight for miles.

Unlike KISS, the quartet of girls have razor-sharp chops and an endearing sense of relevance, which only makes sense since it seems as if they've been on the road almost non-stop for the past 14 years. (Think about that for a second ... a band of 28-year olds has been together and living off their music for 14 years. How awesome is that?)

The band's near-capacity show at Double Door last Saturday night drew heavily off their last two albums, 2004's Gold Medal and the recently released Bitchin'. The songs actually managed to sound more massive than their studio precursors. This is particularly surprising since we expected the band's glam-influenced '70s sound to be sloppier on-stage, but the Donnas charged ahead as a single unit, and captured the crowd's attention from the first cymbal crash.

Singer Brett Anderson careened around, giddy as the crowd responded to her every utterance, actually swelling as her cliches grew sillier. Bassist Maya Ford served as a solid counterpoint to both Anderson's manic energy and guitarist Allison Robertson's shredding and wailing, providing a rock-solid foundation to play off for the wilder personas in the group.

Finally, we feel we must come clean and admit that while our #1 Donnas crush for years was on Robertson (a.k.a. The Donna just about universally agreed to be the hottest Donna by "conventional standards" and various totally unofficial straw polls amongst our boy and gal pals), our fanboy heart now belongs to drummer Torry Castellano. Castellano beat the hell out of her kit, making it look like she was having the best time of her life. This proved to be our personal highlight since it nicely summed up The Donnas' appeal; it's hard not to like a band that's obviously having so much fun doing what they do, and doing it well.

Image via the band's website.