Machine Girl Brings the Chaos of PsychoWarrior to Minneapolis
Electronic punk band Machine Girl brought their PsychoWarrior tour First Avenue in Minneapolis on April 2nd. With the threat of a spring time snow storm looming, all the bands and the audience showed up and brought the energy.
Kicking off the night was LustSickPuppy — a digital hardcore artist from Brooklyn. I haven’t gotten to experience many electronic hardcore shows so the artists performing tonight were new to me but I definitly walked away with some new songs to add to my rotation. LustSickPuppy started with a bang and definitely set the energy bar high for the rest of the night. With their low mood lighting and hard hitters, you could definitely understand why they belonged on their tour.
Shortly after the end of LustSickPuppy’s set, Sextiles hit the stage and it was quite evident there was some hardcore Sextiles fans in the crowd. Their hardcore edm style took me a bit by surprise right off the bat especially coming off of the first artist’s twist on digital hardcore. While the energy they brought to their set was chaotic, it was also so contagious and made the performance so much fun to watch and photograph. After opening the set with long time favorite Disco followed by a newer song of theirs Freak Eyes, they had the whole crowd jumping and some of the venue staff giving into soft head banging.
The anticipation was definitely building in between Sextiles and Machine Girl with a bit of a longer break to change over the stage. The heat and rapid movement of the crowd was beginning to take a toll but the minute the lights once again dimmed and the stage set set off a soft glow to illuminate the machine girl statue looming over the stage, the energy was back and the crowd was getting loud as the MG1 intro hummed in the background. I hadn’t heard of Machine Girl before this show, I have friends who work in venues who are big fans so I usually take that as a sign that it’s going to be a good night. Their set was accompanied by heavy moshing in the crowd and low colorful lighting. With the lead singer in their signature distressed shirt style carried on through the set, the show was getting louder and more immersive as we hit a curve in the show where Matt Stephenson started spending more time in the crowd on climbing the walls of the venue. With some older hits like Status and Psycho Signal Jammer from their 2018 album “Ugly Art”, Mixing with their new stuff We Don’t Give a Fuck and Ignore the Vore, the mix of rockiness and digital hardcore was perfectly achieved and did not disappoint.
As someone who frequents local punk shows here in Minneapolis, I’ve noticed the rise of digital hardcore punk and its deifnitly growing on me. I’m excited to see more of this in the future.
