Sweden's Girl Scout delivered a highlight set at The Bodega during 2024's Dot To Dot Festival. Returning to the same stage less than a year later to deliver a blazing headline set, the band were welcomed warmly by an appreciative crowd, and supported deftly by local group Penny Moon...
Nottingham quartet Penny Moon - supporting tonight - are a great example of the tight-knit and immensely creative local music scene. The band are fronted by Jess Beer, who was spotted on backing vocal-duty for Davoli on the same Bodega stage a few days earlier, and made up of other members of Velvet Blush.
The band were also a great choice to open the night ahead of Girl Scout's headline set. If you like Girl Scout, you're very likely to enjoy Penny Moon. They share similar musical attitudes and approaches while stamping a clear personality of their own on the proceedings.
Theirs is a mix of chuggy and jangly flange swirling guitars, satisfyingly prominent bass and sharp drums. Jess's dreamy, wavy style of signing is pleasingly at odds with the firm and pushy style of the music emanating from the other musicians around her. Her voice is disarmingly sweet at times, but highly engaged.
The Penny Moon set included punchy songs including Map of my Head and Queen of Hearts, getting the energy levels up nicely, while leaving plenty in reserve for the main act.
The sudden outburst of "Hey Hey!" from Jess near the end of their penultimate song hinted at the possibility of bigger moments from the band, whetting appetites to see them again (particularly as their online discography is so limited). The unabashed sweetness in the lyrics of their closing song sat in contrast to the blast of sound from the band, as Jess traced a heart in the air and sung "I drew a heart and put you in the middle". Truly punk.
I overheard many murmurs of appreciation from all parts of the audience as Penny Moon departed.
Girl Scout stepped back on stage at The Bodega to a warm welcome, less than nine months after their memorable Dot To Dot set. That performance was clearly seared into the memories of the band themselves, who expressed genuine love for our city and its music lovers almost as soon as they got on-stage (check out our recent interview for more of their thoughts).
With Emma Jansson providing passion and smiles from her centre-stage position, the band wasted no time, launching - after some fleeting moments of inter-band eye contact - into Desert Island Movies. That's a song from their latest EP, a quirky, punchy, witty number which sums up the band's attitude neatly. A statement piece, and a great opening choice.
Honey and Monster followed, both (slightly) older songs, sweeping and building, and well placed to take the energy smoothly upwards - and stimulate some beautiful singalongs. The first of those tunes was also a great showcase for the insistent, ever-accurate, rapid drumming style of Per Lindberg.
This was clearly a carefully planned and refined set, balancing themes and energy across 12 songs and always giving the band members the opportunity to shine. They're a very talented lot (Viktor Spasov's guitar playing never ceases to drop jaws) and perhaps one of the best live indie-rock bands you could hope to see at the moment: tight enough to appear almost casual but retaining a punchy, raw (or at least, rare) gloss.
During the set, they treated their fans to a couple of lesser-known B-sides, including the rhythmical All The Time And Everywhere and the off-beat, realism-dosing Run Me Over, but at the shining centre of the set sat Bruises: a beautiful garage rock ballad, sung here by Emma with even more intimacy and care than we hear on 2023's Granny Music EP.
The memory of that performance will stick with me for a long while.
This was followed by Mothers & Fathers, a triumph of euphoric rises and falls, before Girl Scout powered through the second half of the set in an unstoppable blaze.
"Boy in blue, I think you gave me the flu" is the opening line to the song co-written by Viktor and Emma, one of those which just seemed to emerge naturally from those uber-creative brains.
Weirdo had the crowd sharing more dazzling moments of mutual vocalism, the warmth of celebrating differences pervading even the most repressed audience member, I'm sure; then Sorry gave us a few minutes to recover breath before the inevitably, irresistible, crunchy blast (topped with huge, long-held vocal notes from Emma) of I Just Needed You To Know. How these people unearthed such a satisfying set of power-chord riffs, I'll never grasp - there must be something special in the Swedish soil they grew up on.
Finally, after more words of love from the stage for our city and the joy of music, what better to way end than with Do You Remember Sally Moore?, Emma exhorting us all to sing along to those evocative, emo-drenched words: "I remember that I drew a heart around her name / While crying on the floor". A moment of life in its wonder and tragedy.
And without much more than a shout of "We'll be at the back!", they were off stage. It had been a breathtaking, beautiful romp, much bigger than its individual moments and one we'd be more than happy to relive again. Come back any time, Girl Scout, there's a place for you here.
A special mention goes to teenage super-fan Lucy (plus family and friends) whose joy at witnessing Girl Scout (again!) was infectious and earned her a personal shout out from Emma, as well as plenty of signatures at the merch desk.
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