Night four of 101WKQX’s Christmas show, The Nights We Stole Christmas, served Chicago up an Elle King sandwich. The middle of three performers Sunday evening, Elle King brought her bluesy snarl and obvious love for country and blues rock to the Aragon. “Ex’s & Oh’s” is the obvious monster here, with millions of spins on your alt rock and streaming service of choice. But “Shame” could be a solid contender to exceed that. It’s a really good song. The intensity and bite of the vocals are better and come across live like a band saw ripping through the room. Elle King has a country punk edge and made sure so weave in plenty of sneers and scrunched up nose looks at the audience gazing back at her.
Catching some of the lyrics, and looking up others on my phone, I tried to get up to speed as quickly as possible. Elle King is not necessarily in my wheelhouse, admittedly. Catching me off guard with lyrics like “You’ll be the shit girl, (pause, wait, wait) show us your tits” and snarky, sarcastic commentary about it being good to be a man, I realized right quick that this was to be filed under – not to be spoken in front of your mother. With the sass of a cranky lover, she spit her tales like one would during a hangover brunch. Rock solid band in tow, doing some heavy lifting, she was free to preach. The crowd had to show some Sunday evening restraint though.. A few too many Hamms, with this as a background, and a nasty bar room brawl coulda broken out.
Now go wash out your mouth with soap. Because I don’t ever want to hear this out of yer mouth again:
