The rock band to see live this summer are the Nova Twins
“I’m the type of girl that likes to take charge, I don’t give a fuck what they say about me. They say I’m scary, that I’m not a lady: I act like a queen”, she sings, wildly Amy Lovewhile accompanying himself on the electric guitar to the notes of the manifesto “Cleopatra“. In the meantime Georgia South runs back and forth across the stage, plucking his bass strings in an ultra-sensual way. The audience crowded under the tent of the Revolut Internship of the Sziget Festival of Budapest, where the two musicians performed yesterday afternoon, is getting excited and abandoning all inhibitions,
letting yourself be enchanted by that mix of hard rock, gothic rock, rap, punk and electronics that characterizes the sound of the British duo. Amy Love and Georgia South, for those who don’t know them, are the Nova Twins, the all-female group which breathed new life into the global rock scene. Unprejudiced, rebellious, committed: the two musicians arrived in the right place at the right time. They reawakened a scene that seemed to no longer produce anything original and they did it with all their nonconformism, their iconoclastic attitude.. Yes, of course, in Ireland Fontaines DC and Elijah Hewson’s Inhaler (Bono’s son) exploded, Greta Van Fleet left Michigan, while “our” Maneskin showed the whole world that Italy is not just pizza and mandolin. But here we are faced with a different phenomenon. Unprecedented.
The Nova Twins represent something that wasn’t there before. Not at this level: They are two black women who have written a new page of the genre, with an intoxicating sound and lyrics that talk about gender inequality and sexual harassment. Winning over a huge audience: “When we started, our concerts were mostly white men. They were always respectful and always welcome, but we noticed that before we were successful there were no women or people of color at rock concerts. At festivals we were the only ones on the bill who looked like us. Now at our shows in front of the stage there is a mix of different people having fun,” they say. If there’s one up-and-coming rock band to see and hear live this summer, it’s the Nova Twins. “No to racism, no to homophobia, no to transphobia, no to xenophobia”, is their slogan, which they also declaim on the stage of the Hungarian festival, starting some healthy Pogo on the Danubian island that hosts the festival.
They performed at Sziget already in 2022: they had debuted two years earlier with “Who are the girls?” and shortly before the performance at the festival they had released their second album “Supernova”. In these two years they have come a long way. Kerrang! defined their sound as “unique in the current rock music scene“, The Guardian wrote that their success “breaks the stereotypes about who can make rock music”. The European tour, after yesterday’s show at Sziget (they were among the most acclaimed of the second daywhich saw Slovenian rockers alternating on the festival stages – among others
Joker Outthe local popstar Azahriahthe Swiss Ele A, Aurora And Halseyback on stage for the first time in seven months and after announcing last month that she has been battling lupus and leukemia for about two years), will continue until the end of the month. Stopping off at festivals such as the German Taubertal Festival in Rothenburg ob der Taube (tonight) and Open Flair Festival in Eschwege (tomorrow) and the French Motocultor Festival in Carhaix-plouguer (August 16), Cabaret Vert in Charleville-mézières (August 18) and V&B Festival in Château-gontier (August 23). There is a very assorted (and very colorful) audience under the Revolut Stage: nerds, metalheads, punkbeasts, boys, girls, teenagers, adults. “Of course we want to represent young black women, but our project doesn’t just speak to them: it speaks to all marginalized communities,” explain Amy and Georgia, half Iranian and half Nigerian the first and half Jamaican the second, who have made inclusivity one of the central themes of their project. So confident, determined and fearless, on stage the two musicians give fans the feeling that together they can face the world. And win.. They present themselves in a 70s power trio style: Amy on guitar (she sings the songs), Georgia on bass and behind them the drummer Jake Woodward. Vocally Amy recalls Skin from her early days with Skunk Anansie, the one from “Paranoid & Sunburnt”, “Stooshe” and “Post orgasmic chill”. “I feel like a riot”, she sings in “Antagonist”, a call to arms written during the post-lockdown reopening.
As they play the various “Taxi,” “Puzzles” and “Undertaker” they are exciting and exhilarating: “We have songs that are not just about politics. We have songs about breakups, about killing our boyfriends and about sex. Dig deep and you’ll see that we are just two normal girls making their way through life.” “Sleep paralysis” is the disturbing soundtrack of a carousel that goes crazy, with the most die-hard and unstoppable fans running in circles preparing to mosh.. Georgia leaves her friend on stage and runs to climb the barriers, amidst general enthusiasm. And finally comes “Cose your fighter”, which curiously has the same title as one of the songs from the “Barbie” soundtrack, sung by Ava Max. In the videos projected on the screen behind them, however, Amy and Georgia are portrayed as two demonic dolls. In this too they underline their total estrangement from what surrounds them.
