Yakkie at The Victoria, Dalston, 21 Sept 2023
You can believe what you read and hear. Yakkie truly IS a ‘punk supergroup’: a coming together of four people who have all excelled in their previous bands and who have even more to say for themselves in their new one. Yakkie made its debut less than a week ago, in the right and proper environs of LOUD WOMEN Fest 2023. It was a triumphant performance that pointed the way directly to many future musical triumphs.
The first such triumph came just four days later when Yakkie headlined their own sellout ‘secret gig’ at Dalston’s Victoria pub this week. One that, I feel, will be included in the ‘gigs of the year’ for most of us who were lucky enough to be there, in a room full of people who, like me, all want so much to see this ‘phoenix from the ashes’ quartet succeed.
All four members of Yakkie have done their bit for the DIY scene in previous groups, and done it well. Having taken sabbaticals of various lengths, they are ready to do it again and, judging from their two shows so far, to do it better. Yakkie’s rhythm section of Jodi and Laura play together with the innate skill of two people who have been working in tandem all their lives, rather than just for a matter of weeks. Guitarist and backing vocalist Robin was great in their previous band Personal Best, and is even better still in their new one.
And smack dab in the middle of this trio’s immense musical competence there’s Janey Starling, moving, jumping, dancing and smiling and with the greatest of respect to her bandmates, drawing all eyes and ears towards her dynamic presence. If ever there was someone who was born for a purpose, it’s Janey. Few people have ever been able to command a crowd’s attention like she can. And her towering stage presence is a big and natural asset when it comes to getting the many, many important things she has to say across. The world could definitely do with a few more Janey Starlings.
Janey’s songs – all of them eloquently and emotionally prefaced with the reasons behind their creation – are frank and frequently chilling on paper, and hardly less so in performance. The fact that Jodi, Laura and Robin make them sound like radio-friendly anthems with rock solid rhythms and catchy tunes never detracts from what Janey wants to ensure Yakkie’s audience hear, whether she’s singing about aggressive male domination in a relationship as she does in ‘Criticise Me’ (“Making Me Feel Small, Does It Make You Feel Taller?”’) or misplaced sympathy for severe and/or fatal domestic violence in ‘Right To Reply’ (“Another Man Killed His Wife Today, The Papers…Gave Him All The Sympathy, When Will We Feel Fucking Safe?”). It’s horrible that we still live in a society where these situations still exist. We all need to be grateful that we have Janey Starling to speak out about them. And long may that be the case.
Yakkie are still a young group, and their set is still something of a work in progress in that it’s currently just seven songs long – six powerful originals and an affecting (and effective) cover of Nena’s ’99 Red Ballons’. This is something that will undoubtedly change as more songs are written and rehearsed, but nobody who saw the performance at the Victoria this week would have come away feeling short changed by what they heard or saw. The leap in collective group confidence between Saturday’s LW Fest debut and this one on a wet Wednesday night just four days later was huge, so much so that it can only be a matter of no time at all before bigger venues reach out to claim what, one has to admit, is rightfully theirs.
And that being so, you need to catch them at any and every opportunity while you can.
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