Ladyfest Scotland 2001

A year on from Ladyfest Olympia saw the baton being passed across the Atlantic - Ladyfest Scotland in wet and windy Glasgow was the product of twelve months of hard work from a volunteer staff of 17 women, cramming everything from discussions about menstruation to art exhibitions, bands to performance poetry into a 72-hour space.

Disco-pop terrorists Bis, metal maidens Fake and Kat Bjelland from Babes In Toyland’s new band Katastrophy Wife trod the floorboards on Sunday night. Bis played a strong, tight set, with catchy crowd screamalongs ‘Starbright Boy’ and ‘Kandy Pop’ mixed up with newer, more mature tunes like ‘The End Starts Today’, combining washes of guitar and synth with a shiny pop sheen. Fake showed no matter what Juliana Hatfield thinks, women can play guitar; their old-school hard rock proving almost as far from Bis as you can get.

Katastrophy Wife were the big draw, people flocking in droves to venerate Kat for her services to grrlkind; but KW has none of the spite or bite of Ms Bjelland’s former outfit, leaving the disappointed masses to instead wonder how long she can keep up the glacial stage presence.

Red Hot Secret opened on Monday; their belligerent thrash-punk set the venue alight, belying the fact that the duo haven’t been together for a year as a band. Sarah Dougher took it down a notch with her wistful Joni Mitchell-inflected urban vignettes – the lovelorn ‘Girl In New Orleans’ and ‘Must Believe’, a cut from new LP ‘The Bluff’, were personal highlights.

Electrelane enchanted despite being largely vocal-less, breaking lengthy debut ‘Rock It To The Moon’ into bite-size, Farfisa-fuelled chunks to help it go down. And the short but sweet Bangs set went down a storm; encores were only after half the audience had appeared as backing dancers on stage and Sarah had blasted out some Black Sabbath.

To say there was a party atmosphere on Tuesday would be an understatement; even without Beth from the Gossip getting her kit off in the name of fat-positivism and dedicating songs to all the girls and queers in the audience, their storming Deep South punk-blues alone would have ensured a rapturous reception. Carol Laula was the calm after the storm, her folky, bittersweet acoustic songs largely unfamiliar, save for a beautiful cover of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’.

Angelica were dogged with sound problems from the start, but soldiered on to deliver a good part of their more reflective new record. Bratmobile couldn’t have been any more adored if they’d given everyone here a bunch of flowers; chucking in sharp new(ish) songs like ‘Gimme Brains’ and ‘Eating Toothpaste’ with a frantic ‘Panik’, and keeping all the ladies, women and girls (and, um, men too) delighted. And Allison even treated us to a few bars of the Thai national anthem – we felt blessed.

It goes without saying Ladyfest Scotland was a resounding success for organisers and participants alike – now could someone be so kind as to organise a Ladyfest Barbados for next year, please?