Delilah Bon
They came, they saw, and they conquered. And the Waterfront Studio audience drift away into the November night, inspired, uplifted, and energised.
It is a sold-out Sunday at the Waterfront Studio, and the return to Norwich of Delilah Bon, the overtly unapologetic and championing alter-ego of former Hands Off Gretel singer, and diversity champion, Lauren Tate. It is the fourth UK date on a tour that began in Paris in September, just as the sophomore ‘Evil, Hate-Filled Female’ album was released. The remaining six dates on the tour have now also sold out.
It is a powerfully-charged atmosphere in the room as Delilah Bon, together with bass player Ruena, backing vocalist Hela, and a live drummer take the stage and launch into ‘Brat‘, a bad-ass anthem released last year as a single, which champions diversity in calling out to “my brat girls, my bitch girls, my gay girls, my straight girls, my bi girls, my trans girls, my queer girls, and my riot girls”. It is followed by ‘Grown Ass Men’, their savage attack on internet trolling, and ‘Chiquitita’, a celebratory ‘bitch and ho’ rap song that definitely was not penned in Stockholm by Bjorn and Benny.
‘I Don’t Listen to You’ is about dressing to please yourself, and ’I Am The Best’ is a confidence-boosting anthem for all women. By the time Delilah Bon has got to ’My Girls’, a rap-rock revenge song that fights back against violence and violation of women by men, the largely female audience are feeling as empowered as a nuclear reactor and, at the same time, having one hell of a night out down at The Waterfront.
But Delilah Bon refuses to take their foot off the pedal and, after a brief hydration break, the band are back with ‘The Internet’, a musical onslaught against on-line porn and misinformation, followed by ‘War On Women’- dedicated to the gay and trans communities (and with the ‘We Will Not Be Silenced’ message proudly painted onto the back of Ruena’s bass guitar), and ‘Epstein’, probably the angriest and most venomous song of the whole set. Except that they still have two more targets left to hit, which they do, scoring direct hits with the child molestation revenge and justice seeking ’I Wish A Bitch Would’, and the overtly portentous ’Dead Men Don’t Rape’ with a refrain that is still being chanted long after the band leave the stage.
‘Evil Hate Filled Female’, the title track of the new album, and ’Maverick’ are saved for the encore, but by then Delilah Bon’s work is done. They came, they saw, and they conquered. And the Waterfront Studio audience drift away into the November night, inspired, uplifted, and energised.
Opening support came from tiLLie, a soulful, visceral and angry singer songwriter with obvious typographical issues, who began writing songs as a depressed and lonely 14 year old living in Atlanta, Georgia. Playing with just a live drummer, she soon won over the hearts and minds of the audience with a powerful and moving set of heart-on-their-sleeve, and often biographic, songs, including ones about growing up in Georgia ('the me u kno'), keyboard stalkers ('mOm's bAsEmeNt'), and domestic violence ('kooL aiD mAn'). Slightly lighter in tone is her Doomsday song, 'jeLLiefish aPocaLypse' (for which she has two fake jellyfish hanging from the microphone stand), and the set ends with a defiant (and movie film-inspired?) 'reaLitie biTes'. Indeed, tiLLie comes across as a powerful hybrid of an overtly angry Winona Ryder, and a cat-crazy Shania Twain. Bloody loved her, moon-boots and all.
