Words and pictures by Spring Wise.
“And your mother is my cheerleader
And I know just how to please her
She’s knitting me a sweater
Said “Delilah Bon 4eva!””
The first thing I noticed when I arrived at the Joiners (1/11/24) was that I wasn’t the only wheelchair user. It’s rare, but it’s happened before that there are two of us. But then there was another, and another, in fact SEVEN. Seven! And sticks and crutches and rollators. I’ve never seen anything like it, but it makes sense.
Delilah Bon is a safe space for everyone who usually feels unsafe in live music. Women, queers, gender nonconforming, neurodivergent, and everyone who looks any flavour of different. We’re not prey tonight. We’re represented and we’re powerful.
I hadn’t heard any Tillie before the show but she had lots of fans in the room. She was the perfect pairing for Delilah. Passionate, powerful, took no prisoners. Her rapport with the crowd was warm and intimate from the start and we were all delighted to hear about an abuser being decapitated in a horrific accident. Delicious.
Delilah delivered exactly what I expected but also somehow more. The visuals, her movement, and the sheer drama of it all. She’s physically small but vibrationally enormous, she fills the whole room while inviting everyone else to join her and be vast, take up space, be part of the furious righteous noise.
I couldn’t sing along very much because I literally cannot get words out of my mouth fast enough but I gave it a good go, and heartily screamed myself hoarse to “I Wish A Bitch Would”, and “Dead Men Don’t Rape” and I also cried with overwhelm as together our voices shook the roof and energised each other until we were superhuman. A beautiful swell of essential rage.
Her co-performers delivered a variety of characters from police officers to clown girls (oh how I love clown girls…) with gymnastic gyrations, flawless costumes, and a wonderful symbiotic chemistry. Never distracting, always enhancing.
Her tour is long sold out, so unless you’ve already got tickets, you are out of luck this time, but I absolutely insist that you see her next chance you get. She’s on a trajectory to something so much bigger even than this. I don’t know exactly what that will look like, but I feel it coming.
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