In 2022’s What I Want MUNA’s Katie Gavin tells the listener, “I want the full effects, I wanna hit it hard, I wanna dance in the middle of a gay bar.” On the last of three nights at London’s iconic queer venue Heaven, Gavin and bandmates Naomi McPherson and Josette Maskin gave an adoring, enraptured crowd the full effects and left everything on the stage.
Heaven’s air conditioning did little to keep the week’s heatwave at the door, and the packed club was hot and sweaty, with sweat dripping from the railway arches soon after. Opening with the on-the-nose It Gets So Hot, MUNA immediately set the tone for the set, bringing infectious energy and euphoria to an adoring, buzzing, predominantly queer crowd.
These three album release shows celebrated MUNA’s latest record Dancing On The Wall, which presents a slight departure from previous albums, displaying a range of influences from ‘80s-esque chunky synths and dreamy guitars on Eastside Girls and On Call to the jungle-like beat and moody synths on Why Do I Get A Good Feeling. Despite the album only being out for a month, the crowd in Heaven joyfully sang every word back to Gavin as they played the record through in full.
Though Dancing On The Wall deals with MUNA’s seeming bread and butter- primarily, queer yearning, lust, and heartache – the band also addresses political and systemic issues, both on record and on stage. “Fuck Trump, fuck the right wing; let’s go”, McPherson told the crowd before launching into Big Stick, which takes aim at the coercive power of the mainstream media, America’s military-industrial complex, and US complicity in the genocide in Palestine and the lack of aid provided. Gavin closed the song with “A lot of us feel speechless right now, and paralysed, and being able to express our anger together is really powerful, so thank you,” to a massive reaction from the crowd.
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After closing with the heartwrenching Buzzkiller, MUNA came back for an eight song encore comprising their biggest hits – including Stayaway, What I Want, I Know A Place, and ending with the bisexual indie pop girl’s national anthem Silk Chiffon – and a deeper cut in Everything off first album About U. It was clear the band were at the end of their nine-date run of album release shows, as they let loose and became just a little more unhinged as the set neared the end: as the band’s inflatable horse Stacey was pinging around the crowd, Gavin got distracted by a flying beach ball and forgot the lyrics to One That Got Away, before she retrieved it and attempted to pop it. Shortly after, as Gavin sang to the crowd, Maskin teasingly took the piss out of her, as the playful back and forth between both bandmates and crowd peaked.
This energy was the perfect end to a tight, exciting, and euphoric set, and as Gavin told the crowd, “We need the revolution and the revolution also needs some silly, silly fun.” It was a perfect celebration of an album that’s clearly already very well-received by the band’s fans, a set packed with songs about love, acceptance, and the joys and heartaches of being queer, and the glittery, happy crowd devoured it.
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“We’re MUNA,” yelled Gavin as the band said their goodbyes, “and we’re the greatest band in the world!” Judging by the crowd’s reaction, as strong as when the band stepped onto the stage as when they left, they might just well be.
Nonchalant x
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Lily Waite-Marsden is a London-based writer, editor, photographer, designer, is Associate Editor at Pellicle Magazine, and founder of the award-winning queer and trans brewery Queer Brewing. She writes about beer, music, and queer culture, and primarily photographs food and drink, bands, and lesbians and other assorted queers. She’s a voracious reader, a pretty good tennis player, and lives in London with her wife and two dogs Teddy and Pickle.
