Prozac and Whimsy

If I have talked at you about music in the past three years or so I WILL have wittered on about Lambrini Girls at some point. I first stumbled upon them on a Big Scary Monsters sampler on Bandcamp and their thunderous crude approach grabbed me from the off.

The first time I saw them was way down the bill at a Future Days all dayer in 2023, they came on immediately blew the PA and carried on anyway. It was amazing and all too short.

Since then they have graced the cover of Kerrang! found themselves on 6music, played Glastonbury, toured the world and released their first full length album, the frankly bloody brilliant Who Let The Dogs Out?  Their rise has been meteoritic but where do they go from here?

The answer seems to be a quick winter European tour or more precisely a former  industrial unit in Digbeth on a dreary Saturday night. XOYO (previously know as The Mill) is a cosy 800 capacity venue round the corner from The Rainbow and spitting distance of The Institute. Doors were at the comically early 18:00 and we arrived at 18:59 to an already crowed room just as the support CLT DRP (Clit Drip) were hitting the stage.

CLT DRP were mostly very good, only let down briefly by an errant pedal that was vital to their sound and killed the momentum they were building dead. One to keep an eye on.

As the room got fuller the buzz got bigger. Everyone knew this was going to be something a bit special or at least we all wanted it to be. We were not let down.

From the opening 1-2 of Bad Apple and Company Culture things only paused while we were steered to mosh harder, faster, build a human pyramid or hold Phoebe aloft while she carried on singing. Lunny genuinely seems to be having the time of her life but seems to rather spend her time in/on the crowd than the stage, this is fine as the bulk of their sound comes the frenetic drumming of Misha Phillips and thunderous bass of Selin Macieira-Boşgelmez.

There are heart felt calls to free Palestine, to protect trans lives, to call out our friends shitty behaviour and to fuck fascism. These girls wear their hearts on their sleeves and nothing that is said on stage feels trite or for show.

The hour long set hurtled by and it says a lot about their output that you can already gripe that they didn’t play certain songs (Terf Wars/Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels) they of course finished with Cuntology 101 before leaving us with Big Dick Energy as the encore (I’ll write about how much I hate encores another day)

Where they go from here will be very interesting and the next 12-18 months will either see them take over the world or stumble a little with the traditionally difficult second album. Mid sized venues will be a welcome and deserved step up but a lot of the intimacy and interaction will be lost in return. But right now they are THE band to see.

Set list

Bad Apple
Company Culture
Help Me I’m Gay
God’s Country
Mr Lovebomb
You’re Not From Around Here
Lads Lads Lads
Filthy Rich Nepo Baby
Love
Special Different
Boys in the Band
No Homo
Craig David
Cuntology 101

Encore:
Big Dick Energy