Music / Reviews
Review: Los Bitchos, SWX – ‘Funky, breezy, uptempo’
Los Bitchos, making a stop in Bristol on their UK tour to celebrate the release of second album Talkie Talkie. A band I have seen countless times, from the sunny Glastonbury Park Stage to Bristol’s Ritual Union Festival in 2022.
But first, a treat for us tonight in the shape of Faux Real. A complete unknown to many of us here, they certainly made an impression. Taking to the stage all in white, tight and tiny clothing with padlocks around their necks, they drew the crowds in, leaping directly from stage on to the barrier and proving balance, agility and skill all in one jump.
The band use mime and build their own human stage wherever they go in the venue, while marching up and down performing high kicks over the heads of the crowd.
They play to a recorded backdrop of 80s-style pop synth, and dance like early Take That. Their performance is hip shaking, buttock thrusting, intensely silly with undeniable charm.
The crowd thoroughly warmed up, it’s time for Los Bitchos. The band take to the stage to the Addams Family theme, all dressed in full ghoulish costume that puts the crowd to shame.
They kick off with new album opener Hi! Lead guitarist and founding member Serra Petale, in skeleton regalia, begins her Halloween shred fest and the festivities begin.
This is music to have fun to. The band don’t take themselves too seriously, even though what Petale can do with a guitar is astonishing. At one point she turns the performance into an endurance sport. Playing a bongo solo so long and hard her hands look set to fly offstage, she then jumps straight into a virtuoso guitar solo. Her passion and exhilaration is written clearly all over her face.
This is funky, breezy and uptempo instrumental rock – a sound undeniably their own.
Don’t Change, Petale explains, is one of the first songs she wrote, in her bedroom in a house share. The song is seriously funky and a joyous escape from a gloomy October evening: emotional songs played by emotional people, as she puts it.
The overriding emotion tonight is pure love and communal celebration. The band hit us with the established live hits: FFS is delivered fast with shots of tequila flowing on stage. The crowd have found enough room to dance, with all enacting the swaying fish hands dance traditional at a Los Bitchos show.
The Halloween makeup is bleary by now as the band announce they have one more, just for us. They pass round a bottle of tequila, before jumping straight into – of course – a cover of Tequila with Agustina Ruiiz (Aka the night figure skater Tonya Harding) on vocals. The crowd are in love with them.
I went into the venue feeling very October and left feeling much more July. Let’s hope we see Los Bitchos back again very soon.
All photos: Matt Barnes
Read next:
Our newsletters emailed directly to you
