We wish these were our pictures, but they're not. Ours were just awful (we can't overstate the importance of a good digital camera!). As a result, we're using these, from a batch loaned to us by BandPhotography.com a while ago. Visit their site. It's excellent.

Although officially on hiatus, Portland trio Sleater-Kinney appeared recently at a number of stops on a West Coast mini-tour. The Bay Area was lucky enough to have three of those occur in San Francisco, at the 600-capacity Great American Music Hall. An ornately detailed, early 20th-century dancehall, the Great American is usually considered one of the best venues in the city, although not the biggest by far. The choice of venue is further proof, if any were needed, that Sleater-Kinney's relationship with their audience isn't based on mere economics; how many other bands of their stature, able to sell out three nights in a row in a flash, would hesitate to move to one night at a larger space? But the women of S-K want to see their audience -- performing, in a sense, with and not for. Guitarists/vocalists Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker and drummer Janet Weiss have built a devoted and growing following with a combination of energetic, evocative songwriting and an unpretentious personal manner. (Which got them named "Best Rock Band" in 2000 by that arbiter of cool, Time magazine, though their record sales are in the tens of thousands rather than the millions.)

The second night of their stand began with a bit of Freudian analysis. "According to Freud," joked Brownstein as the three took the stage for the second time that evening (having appeared earlier to help set up their equipment), "the second child is very independent, after the parents have exhausted all their energy on the first. So we'll leave you alone tonight, as long as you dance." With that, the band ripped into the uptempo "Things You Say", and the pace never flagged. A mix of old songs and almost a third new tracks -- the band's going into the studio in March with an album scheduled for this fall, a bit of news that was met with cheers -- the set slighted S-K's more elegant, delicate songs, but the forcefulness of their delivery was more than satisfying. Like the Who's early singles, S-K cram an explosive energy into the form of a three minute pop song. Despite their easy-going indie rock personalities, these women are rock stars: wholly engaging, magnetically fun.

Drummer Janet Weiss's third-night joke: "A grasshopper walks into a bar and sits down at a stool. The bartender looks at him and says, 'Hey, we have a drink named after you!' The grasshopper replies, 'You have a drink named Steve?'"

The band's most innovative studio trope -- Brownstein and Tucker singing, simultaneously but not in harmony, each holding separate sides of a conversation, speaking different sides of a thought -- suffers in concert, as the acoustics of a live rock show impact the vocals more than anything else. The live setting allowed the band to juxtapose songs from different parts of their career, to sometimes shocking effect: the power-pop of a new song just before the howling "Turn It On"; another new song with a martial beat leading into the riotous cherry-bomb "You're No Rock 'n' Roll Fun". Listening to songs from throughout the band's career made their artistic growth, and also the connections between their work, more obvious. Anthemic tracks from their latest, All Hands on the Bad One ("Acid Tooth", "The Professional"), mixed easily with the bottom-heavy rock of the new songs and the propulsive selections from Dig Me Out.

Brownstein and Tucker, as the principal songwriters and singers, attract most of the attention, but it's through Weiss that S-K found one of their paths from "good" to "great". Truly first-class drummers are rare, and the leap between S-K's first two albums and the unadulterated triumph of 1997's Dig Me Out rests to a large extent in her capable hands. Brownstein and Tucker were already evolving as songwriters, from their first self-titled album to the complex and emotionally fraught Call the Doctor, but it was the addition of Weiss who threw them into overdrive. Being able to watch her at a show is a marvel: head swinging from side to side, Weiss works her relatively minimal drum kit with an exact, fierce concentration. Incredibly enough, she can continue to do this while singing backing vocals.

Brownstein and Tucker, at the front of the stage (Brownstein on the left, Tucker on the right), stake out their positions, but Brownstein can't stay in one place for long. She stalks the stage with all the energy of a classic rocker, windmilling her arm, pogoing, stepping up on a monitor and falling back, heading toward Tucker until the two are face to face and wringing chords from their dual guitars. These rock star moves lose their clichés in the sheer joy of Brownstein's performance; being on stage for S-K, especially after an extended hiatus, is not a job but a liberation. The assembled crowd -- young, maybe slightly more women than men, decked out in their best urban hipster and dyke chic -- responded with equal enthusiasm.

The only untrue line in S-K's emotionally honest catalogue: "This is a dumb song." ("Good Things")

On the last night of their stand (1/16), the band were in perhaps even finer form. Maybe half of the songs repeated from the previous evening, but -- heeding Brownstein's admonition that, it being their last night, there was no need to hold back -- the band threw in some older fan favorites. "Call the Doctor" appeared second in the set, and the title track from their second album, an artistic and critical breakthrough, proved just as engaging six years after its release as any of the band's newer work. Other favorites from that album appeared later in the set: a reworked version of the wrenching "Good Things" ("It's a hard place / Can't be friends, we can't be enemies"); "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone", the rock 'n' role-model gender deconstruction that swings harder than any song fitting that description should warrant. After two short encores, the unassuming women of Sleater-Kinney left the stage with a wave and a smile, leaving the crowd happy and sweating, already hoping for their next visit.

Article by Ryan Tranquilla