• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Jun 17, 2025 By Vida Hasson Photography by Vida Hasson Web Exclusive

If you know Frightwig, you might be an aging punk who caught them at The Mab (Mabuhay Gardens) in the 1980s. Perhaps you were a teen in the 1990s, and watched Nirvana on MTV Unplugged where Kurt Cobain wore a Frightwig shirt under his green cardigan. Maybe you are Gen-Z riot grrrl revivalist and know Frightwig for their historical significance, planting the seed for the bands like L7, Hole, and Tribe 8. Maybe you saw them open for Bikini Kill at The Warfield last year. Maybe you don’t know them at all. Well, regardless, Frightwig rocked the 4 Star Theatre with Sapphic Musk and Quaaludes in their hometown of San Francisco last Saturday night.

The 4 Star Theatre (very formerly known as La Bonita, then just The Star Theatre) has been on the corner of Clement and 23rd Avenue for over 100 years. The locally owned venue hosts local bands, DJs, an in-house record store run by Tunnel Records, screens movies, and still prints monthly calendars on very bright cardstock paper. A concert at the 4 Star Theatre means, to me, that I get to sit during the show. Large comfortable movie theater chairs occupy the entire floor of the 140 capacity venue. You might think sitting during a show is lame, but punk is dead and I’m tired. 4 Star gives the old punks what they want: to take a seat! No worries of tired legs or locked knees there.

Before the show I dug around in the new used arrivals section of Tunnel Records, which began operating in The 4 Star in 2023. When the shop first opened, it housed mostly vinyl reissues of popular albums. With the graceful passage of two years time, that collection has expanded into a great body of used and local vinyl available only in-store. Then, as if on queue, the leather and overall clad audience shuffled into the theatre and the show began.

The other San Francisco band on the bill, Quaaludes, carries Frightwig’s local legacy. They sang in a bespoke, lo-fi mix of spoken word and what I call mock-rock: a sing-songy, laughing-gassy kind of vocals performed exclusively by untrained mezzo-sopranos who would never refuse a free ciggy. Tobi Vail of Bikini Kill acts as the blueprint for this style (the song “I Hate Danger” in particular). Quaaludes lead vocalist, Aimee Belden, has refined mock-rock for this maximalist century. Those movie theater chairs held maybe fifty concert goers, but the pair of eyes on each one of them coalesced around Quaaludes with so much attention they could have sold eye drops at the merch table – so many dry eyes.

Sapphic Musk came on next. With a name like that I sure hoped they would stink, but instead they surprised me with a shtick. The lead singer, Sara T. Russel, wore viking horns, the wings of some avian costume, and fought a blow up dragon with a sword that emerged from behind her synth. The band has mastered showy visuals uplifted by powerful vocals and bass lines that made the White Stripes sound like elevator music. It felt rare to see a band attempt any kind of out of the box weirdness. I leaned back in my chair and thought, wow, punk is not so dead after all.

“Come on, Tina!” Frightwig lead singer Deanna Mitchel shouted repeatedly to incite their drummer, Tina Fagnani, to count them in. On the mic, Mitchel sang with effortless vibratos that fell from her mouth and doused the room with sonic pleasure. My head shimmied from side to side as the nimble reverb from guitarist Mia d’Bruzzi embedded some psychedelic rock into their sound. In the one minute ripper of a song, “Aging sucks,” d’Bruzzi joined Mitchel on vocals in a tight call and response. On other songs, they harmonized with a folk melody so unified they could lure in the tide at Ocean Beach. Chatting with Fagnani between sets felt like finding a stranger halfway across the world born in the same home town. In other words, Frightwig felt like home.

“Just fucking sing the song, Tina,” Mitchel said with love and feigned indifference before Tina charmed the crowd with, “Shine Your Light,” written by their former drummer Ceceilia Kuhn, who passed away from cancer in 2017. “Who saw us play with Cecelia?” Mitchell asked mid show, eliciting some scattered yeahs and raised hands from the crowd. Kuhn was the heart of the band, Mitchel alluded to on stage, but they give Fagnani, who boasted a Bikini Kill T-shirt from behind the kit, credit for their comeback. Fagnini’s version of “Shine Your Light” was so beautiful that it plucked a tear from my eye. It should be broadcasted to the world.

Mitchel ended most songs on a deadpan note: “You’re welcome.” Many thank you’s rumbled from the crowd, including my own hoarse ones, faded from screaming words to songs I didn’t know.

Not every show can be punk rock history, not even this one. What I thought would be a dip into nostalgia, instead oozed prescience. Frightwig played new songs. The crowd was young and old. At a time when music and art critics declare all new music derivatives, these three bands drew a colorful, wavy line between the past and today.

Frightwig had a final and very prescient message Mitchel announced at the end of the show: “We all have to write our own fucking protest songs. [...] If you need to support our democracy, raise it up, you can always call Frightwig because we love to play for you.”