Thunderpussy is one of those band names that commands your attention. And on the Tuesday night of SXSW, Thunderpussy also proved themselves to be a band that commands your attention as they played a powerful and energetic set to a packed house at BD Riley’s.
There’s not necessarily anything groundbreaking about what they do – it’s straight up meat and potatoes rock – but they do it well and they do it with such conviction that you can’t help but get swept up in it. Singer Molly Sides is a great frontwoman who prowled about the stage and the rest of the bar while her bandmates held it down onstage. Sides has that classic big rock voice that reminded me a bit of Grace Slick even before the band launched into a cover of Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody To Love.” She even captured that vibrato in Grace Slick’s delivery on that song (without crossing into the over the top parody of Jim Carey’s Cable Guy performance of course). Their original numbers shared some of that classic rock sound while also tipping their hat to the ’90s Seattle sound – not too surprising since the band hails from Seattle.
Closing things out with another cover, Tom Petty’s “Refugee,” the band got the whole room singing along and by the end of their set, left the crowd wanting more.