Music / Reviews
Review: Rita Lynch, Cafe Kino – ‘A legendary Bristol voice finds new weight’
Indie rockstar Rita Lynch and her band electrified the intimate basement of Cafe Kino with their powerful music.
In a room where the audience is close enough to see every chord change, the Bristol legend delivered a set that balanced veteran poise with the same snarl that defined her early punk days.
“It was my first time playing in this venue and I loved it. It had nice lighting, good sound and a beautiful stage, which is all you can ask during a gig”, said Rita.
Now performing as a four-piece, the band’s dynamic has found a new weight as the addition of new member Freddie on stage adds a fresh layer to the arrangements, filling the Stokes Croft space with a dense, textured resonance that complemented Lynch’s visceral guitar work.
Rita’s expanded band set up has added new depth and layers to her live act
Alongside the established trio of vocalist Rita Lynch, drummer John Langley and bassist Mike Youe, young guitarist Freddie Parnell left a mark as the new addition to the band.
“It’s only my second gig so I’m still learning with the band while trying to do as much as I can for it,” said Freddie.
This expanded lineup brought a sense of scale to the performance, leaning into a wall of sound that felt perfectly calibrated for the room’s tight acoustics.
Every drum beat and guitar strum felt like it was choreographing an adrenaline rush in the audience, moving the set along between loud cheers and several rounds of applause. They described it as a force that was pulling them towards rock music.
Beginning her career in the 70s, music has been a constant in Rita’s life and she has lost none of her fierce conviction
Praising Bristol’s music scene, Rita said: “I’m used to performing in Bristol now so that familiarity makes me comfortable with the audience here.
“It’s a very interesting mix of people from different age groups to perform for and there are many young and emerging bands too, diversifying Bristol’s music culture.”
The performance served as a powerful reflection of Rita’s unique journey of over four decades through the city’s musical history, which she celebrates with her music, band members and audience as an evolution.
“A very positive change for me was meeting my drummer John, as we started jamming and playing all the time”, she said while talking about this journey.
Rita admits she’s released so many albums she’s lost count; her latest, Fairy Tales and Lies, came out in October last year
From forming one of the UK’s first all-female punk bands, Rita & the Piss Artists, to her long-standing association with art-rock mainstays the Blue Aeroplanes, Lynch has spent decades honing a sound that is as much about poetry as it is about volume.
Her set at Cafe Kino bridged the gap between the raw energy of her 1991 debut album Call Me Your Girlfriend and the more refined, brooding atmosphere of recent works like Fairy Tales and Lies.
Her reputation for intensity is very well documented. In 2009, the Bristol and Bath entertainment magazine Venue described Lynch as “the personification of ferocious conviction” and named her performance at the Fleece on August 13 as Bristol’s third-best gig of the year.
Nearly two decades later, that conviction remains entirely intact.
All images: Vihan
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