Bikini Kill made their long-awaited television debut on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last night (July 15). Watch their performance below.
Kathleen Hanna and co. appeared as the musical guests on yesterday’s episode of the late-night CBS talk show.
The riot grrrl pioneers delivered a raw and explosive live rendition of their classic 1993 single ‘Rebel Girl’, which appears on their debut studio album ‘Pussy Whipped’. Host Colbert introduced the band while holding up a vinyl edition of their 1998 compilation ‘The Singles’.
“That girl thinks she’s the queen of the neighbourhood/ She’s got the hottest trike in town/ That girl, she holds her head up so high/ I think I wanna be her best friend, yeah,” Hanna sang in the first verse over scuzzy electric guitar.
Watch Bikini Kill’s appearance on Colbert here:
Following the performance, Bikini Kill shared a series of photos on social media. “Thank you so much @colbertlateshow for having us!” they wrote as the caption.
Bikini Kill are due to embark on a North American headline tour next month, including shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Brooklyn and Toronto. Find any remaining tickets here.
Last month saw the group play a run of dates in the UK and Europe, with the trek featuring a stop-off at Primavera Sound in Barcelona. Reviewing the festival set, NME praised Bikini Kill’s “blisteringly brilliant return”.
In May, Kathleen Hanna published her memoir Rebel Girl: My Life As A Feminist Punk. Speaking to NME, the frontwoman explained that the book was “not setting the record straight at all”.
“I wanted to write stories that have resonance for me still,” Hanna said. “Things that I look back on and I’m like, ‘I learned something from that’.
“I came out the other side [of writing the book] feeling like I can move on. I thought it was gonna be really awful and painful talking about the book in interviews, but I just felt kind of like a relief.”