MANNEQUIN PUSSY: I GOT HEAVEN TOUR with SOUL GLO
The Fonda Theater
Los Angeles
April 26, 2024
My millennial algorithm keeps pushing TikToks about the power of listening to nostalgic music, claiming, essentially, that dancing to System of a Down beats finding a new therapist. An internet psychologist in my feed says it’s harder to form the same relationship to music as an adult than it is as a teen — something to do with dopamine receptors and reaching an age past which art can’t biohack the chemically ingrained bitterness in our brains. But fuck all that, because the band Mannequin Pussy has pushed me to levels of fandom apparently unbefitting people in their thirties.
Mannequin Pussy hit Los Angeles last Friday night at the Fonda in Hollywood. I bought my tickets six months ago, during the fan presale, well before the March release of their second full-length album, I Got Heaven, which has received mass praise for its oscillation between big, messy, rhythms and sugary, catchy melodies. I saw the band about halfway through a nearly sold-out tour, alongside fellow Philadelphians and labelmates Soul Glo, whom LARB has previously reviewed; even then, it felt surreal to watch a group that gritty and femme play a stage so big.
Following Soul Glo’s thrashing opening set, Mannequin Pussy’s barking lead singer Marisa “Missy” Dabice slunk onstage in a white dress with big pink roses. The new album’s cover, which depicts a grungy, nearly naked Dabice holding a boar in front of a sunset, plays with similar contrast: clawing internal anger overlaid with sweetness. Rounded out by keys, guitar, and longtime band members Colins “Bear” Regisford on bass and Kaleen Reading on drums, Mannequin Pussy kicked off their set with “I Don’t Know You,” a slower song about crushes and the unknown, before transitioning into the eerily seductive “Sometimes,” a track about self-destruction and loneliness. Dabice dedicated each song to deep-seated tormentors: shame, control, validation, the Bible. Immediately, the room was enchanted.
My friend and I found our way to the thick of things at the front. With each song, the pit widened up; I found myself flung around, screaming and pushing, holding down the edge and throwing myself into the middle. It had been a while since I’d moshed, but the rules remained the same: kindness, care, mutual destruction. Except that pit felt especially femme and Brown, reflecting the artists themselves.
Close to the end of the set, Dabice whispered her way through a speech. She was gentle, almost inaudible — a playful twist after her roaring lead vocals. Dabice attested to knowing how it feels to be “ashamed of your anger”; to feel “that your anger is infantilizing, that your anger is something that you will grow out of, that your anger is not acceptable … that in order to be listened to, you need to speak the languages they do,” adding, “I think all of that is exquisite bullshit.” Loving this band overwhelms me in that big teenage fandom way, and there Dabice was, vocalizing why they meant so much to the whole room: “Anger grows and grows inside of you and it threatens to consume you, and I stand here not able to give you the solution perhaps we all crave, but we stand here as a reflection of what it is you feel.” Then, all together, led by this glorious, angelic figure of Fuck You, we screamed.
As music and culture move toward monotony, a band like Mannequin Pussy sticks out like a jagged, raw-feeling edge. My teenage anger didn’t disappear with my box-dyed hair and self-cut bangs. Instead, it has grown and matured into what is — as Dabice’s speech and the band’s lyrics so powerfully articulate — a perfectly acceptable adult rage. And while I should probably keep my next therapy appointment, it’s good to know that sometimes a mosh pit works just the same.
