The Kills defined cool last night at the Midland

The Kills’ music could have been a perfect soundtrack for yesterday’s ridiculous weather in Kansas City – it’s at times ominous, unhinged and just unpredictable enough to keep you on edge. The band’s performance last night at the Midland capped off a strange day by taking that ominous tension and channeling it into a frenzy of wild, literally spitting energy. Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince, the brains and bodies of the Kills, worked completely, stylishly in sync throughout the 90-minute set. The show was fresh and tough. The Kills remain achingly cool.

The band wasted no time getting its set started right before 9, with “No Wow.” Hince wore a dark, fitted suit. Mosshart drew eyes with fitted leather pants and platform boots. She propped one leg up on the stage amps and with her shoulders tucked in tight, reached out into the audience: You’re gonna have to step over my dead body / before you head out that door. 

The pair pounded and writhed through more classic cuts, including “Heart is a Beating Drum,” “Kissy Kissy” and “Black Balloon,” but the set was particularly heavy with the band’s new material from the upcoming release Ash & Ice, one of the band’s most solid releases since No Wow. In writing much of the record, Hince has had a lot of inspiration to pull from: a trip on the Trans-Siberian express (que melodramatic!), a divorce from supermodel Kate Moss, and an injury to his left hand that forced him to endure six surgeries and the loss of most use of one of his fingers. The Kills have always walked a line of open rawness, but there are aspects of the new material that feel quite direct. 

If you were not aware of it, Hince’s injury is not apparent in the sounds that he manages to pull out of his instrument — he still pulls out wailing, crunchy and concise components that drive the tenor of the band’s songs. He’s had to re-learn how to play much of his music as the middle finger of his left hand is “useless for playing guitar,” and you can see (again, if you are looking) that his middle finger doesn’t touch the neck of the guitar anymore. It juts straight upward, or often (and appropriately for the Kills), out towards the audience. Perhaps it doesn’t sound like much, but for a now-veteran stage performer, to have to make this adjustment — and even to somehow benefit from it in the form of expanding your notions of how to play — is impressive.

It was difficult at points throughout the set to determine who was more interesting to watch — Hince or Mosshart. The two both famously prowl the stage, feeding off of each other’s energy. They spit, they pose, bend in half backwards or pulse towards the audience with downbeats. Mosshart’s bleached hair whips around with her movements and soaks up the stage lights. The two are ruthlessly magnetic. 

All of the style and picture-perfect face-to-face standoffs don’t mean much if you don’t have musical chops to pull it off, though. The Kills have amassed enough top-quality material in the band’s decade and a half together to effectively pull off this kind of performance, and make you lose track of time. The drum-machine beats of the band’s early albums are supplanted by pounding live drums. Mosshart does some instrument rotation, moving from supplying vocals to adding guitar, piano and even throwing her body into pounding a tom during “Pots and Pans.”

The band didn’t say much to the audience through the set, other than a few whoops and thank-yous, but it’s not necessary. The pair’s chemistry is so entertaining, both physically and musically, as Hince’s guitar lines often parallel or directly complement Mosshart’s vocals. Their partnership is an intense friendship, and one that thankfully has survived some of the tumult of the past few years, while Hince recovered from his injury and while Mosshart worked with the Dead Weather, among other projects. Hince and Mosshart’s partnership still looks dirty and fun, and we still want to be a part of it.

Add-ons: There were a lot of cool women featured throughout the night, including the effective, well-matched LA Witch, who opened the show. The band’s short set of scuzzy garage-punk made us all forget the flooded streets awaiting us outside.

Setlist:

No Wow

U.R.A. Fever

Heart Is a Beating Drum

Kissy Kissy

Hard Habit to Break

Heart of a Dog

Impossible Tracks

Black Balloon

Doing It to Death

Baby Says

Whirling Eye

Siberian Nights

Pots and Pans / Monkey 23

Encore:

Tape Song

Bitter Fruit

Fried My Little Brains

Sour Cherry