Girls Rule Mercy Lounge With She's a Rebel Tribute

The only thing more heartening than the prospect of Friday night's She's a Rebel girl-group tribute at Mercy Lounge — which featured an all-female cast of killer local talent — was the fact that the show sold out. In attendance were loads of familiar, young local show-goers as well as people who appeared, shall we say, mature enough to have been around during the girl groups’ original heyday. Some folks wore sequins and beehives, most looked conspicuously modern. But everyone in the house sang and danced along for two hours’ and 27 songs’ (by our count) worth of solid golden oldies.

The Spin showed up to Mercy right at the stroke of 9 o’clock, but we found ourselves in line on the front steps with the rest of the will-call and guest-list folks as a show-opening rendition of “Be My Baby” rang out like the eerie howls of a specter (or should we say “Spector”?) from upstairs. We made it into the club a couple of songs later, finally able to lay eyes on the all-female, 10-plus-member house band that would guide us through more than two dozen classic pop and R&B songs originally performed by the likes of girl groups including The Ronettes, The Supremes, Shangri-Las, The Crystals, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and more. The horn and string sections would come and go throughout the night as the need arose, but present for the whole thing would be members of local outfits including Those Darlins, Adia Victoria, Idle Bloom, Take the Power Back and more.

Drummer Tiffany Minton served as a sort of de facto bandleader-slash-MC behind the kit, introducing each guest vocalist and providing small bits of expository banter here and there — as when, before Birdcloud’s Jasmin Kaset took the lead on The Crystals’ “He Hit Me (and It Felt Like a Kiss),” Minton explained how hitmakers Carole King and Gerry Goffin wrote the song after discovering that their babysitter, singer “Little” Eva Boyd, was being beaten by her boyfriend. Minton also took the opportunity before Caitlin Rose sang Leslie Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me” to point out the song’s ongoing relevance — an anthem of sorts for a woman’s right to make her own decisions in regard to her own body and her own life.

But in addition to a killer band making a killer statement about feminism, Friday night’s festivities also featured a whole lot of dancing and goose-bump-inducing moments. Bully’s Alicia Bognanno nailed “My Boyfriend’s Back” with her raspy punk-pop holler, receiving some assistance from the sequin-ensconced house quartet of background vocalists. Alanna Quinn-Broadus of Alanna Royale — whose wheelhouse is of course neo-soul — looked ridiculously comfortable in period-appropriate attire while singing “Needle in a Haystack,” “Then He Kissed Me” and “Baby Love.” Thelma and the Sleaze’s Lauren Gilbert cracked everyone up by demanding that we “get nuts to butts in this motherfucker” before stomping through “Dancing in the Street” with supreme vigor. The Protomen’s Amy “The Gambler” Smith brought the house down with “He’s Gone” — a friend pointed out that the colossally voiced Smith probably could have carried a whole night’s worth of vocals were this not a revue-style affair — and powerhouse vocalist Kyshona Armstrong (see our recent feature on her

) nearly stole the show, owning a Darlene Love double-shot of The Blossoms' “Good, Good Lovin’ ” and The Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron" like they were her own.

Another special moment came when youngster Robin August “Little Bean” Fritsch — we’re told she’s just 11 — sang The Ronettes’ “So Young,” appropriately enough. Our favorite bit, though, was probably when the house band sat down their instruments, picked up some drumsticks and gathered around one mic at the front of the stage for a pretty damn authentic cover of Dixie Cups’ “Iko Iko.”

What else? Well, there was no shortage of great songs sung by great singers, from Tristen doing “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and the night’s titular tune “He’s a Rebel” to The Ettes’ Coco Hames delivering “Baby It’s You,” Emily DeLoach nailing “You Can’t Hurry Love,” Forget Cassettes’ Beth Cameron acing “Remember (Walking in the Sand),” Adia Victoria killing it with “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” and beyond. If we had to make one complaint about the night, it would be that the mix could have been just a touch better — maybe the lead vocals were a little low and the guitars were a bit high. But any show with this many instruments and vocalists onstage, with this wide a variety of guest singers coming and going from song to song, is going to demand a lot as far as logistics are concerned, and we commend both the players and Mercy’s staff for keeping the whole thing flowing smoothly for the show’s duration.

All of the evening’s guests (Who did we leave out? Kelli Kvarnes, Carrie Kotsionis, Margo Price, Jessie Friedman, Larissa Maestro, Sarah Bandy) returned to the stage for an Armstrong-led, set-ending, blowout rendition of the aforementioned “Da Doo Ron Ron.” At one point in the night, Maestro had pointed out that it’s a rare sight for a musician to walk into a rehearsal or a session in Music City and find a roomful of women. She’s a Rebel proved that — whatever the reason for that unfortunate fact — it sure as shit isn’t because of a lack of talent.