Bikini Kill performs at The Salt Shed in Chicago on Sept. 14, 2026.
By Nina Tadic
Revolution comes in many forms. We see it in protests, we see it in political movements. We see it in the arts. The best way to see it, perhaps? Girl Style Now – witnessing the firecrackers onstage that are the women of Bikini Kill.
Punks of all ages show out in droves at Chicago’s Salt Shed on Monday night. Kids that weren’t even alive when this band formed, folks who were probably at the band’s first Chicago gig, and even folks that could be these women’s parents. All congregating in one place on a Monday night: Chicago’s Salt Shed, the former Morton Salt storage shed that has now been transformed into an enigmatic concert space that boasts both indoor and outdoor stages, food trucks, a barcade, plenty of food options, and pretty much anything else a concert venue this size could hold. But the venue’s amenities aren’t what draws the crowd: it is the aforementioned women onstage. Kathleen Hanna, Tobi Vail, and Kathi Wilcox (all original bandmembers) share the stage alongside touring member Sara Landeau, and from the second they make their way out, the shrieking and hooting and hollering is deafening.
When the band was first touring in the early 90s, women dominating punk music was pretty unheard of. It wasn’t nonexistent, but it took a lot of work to become what it is today. The Riot Grrrl movement (co-founded by vocalist Kathleen Hanna) was responsible for quite a few things that made the band stand out – including the phrase “girls to the front.” From the time the band formed, they were set on making spaces for women in punk music. In the crowd, in the mosh pits, against the stage, on the mic, on the drums, on the bass. Everywhere. And then this expanded to the more intersectional understanding of women, nonbinary folks, minorities, LBGTQIA+ community members. Intersectionality became a staple at the band’s shows, and it has stayed such since then, as shown by the widespread and magnificent crowd at Monday night’s gig.
Bikini Kill performs at The Salt Shed in Chicago on Sept. 14, 2026.
Bikini Kill put out three albums during their first go-round as a band, as well as a handful of compilations, splits, EPs, you name it. Since their reunion in 2019, they’ve been playing it all. In Chicago, fans were spoiled with a million and one (technically only twenty-four, but it felt like many more) fantastic songs, starting with “New Radio,” and working down the line through plenty of singles, fan favorites, and deep cuts. During “New Radio,” Kathleen belts into the mic with so much power it is astounding, all while bouncing across the stage in a hot pink babydoll dress covered in blue sequins, the dichotomy of badass. “I love it here, Chicago. I almost moved here instead of New York – but those winters. I couldn’t do it,” she jokes, a few minutes into the set.
Three songs in, she tells a story about a time she played in this city a few decades back and someone stole all of her former band’s demo tapes from their van.“The first time I played in Chicago, I was in another band, and we played a bar. And all of our demo tapes got stolen out of our “sort of not really a” van. And if the person who did it is here, I just wanna say ‘f— you.’ I know you’re not really here. We were like scrounging quarters out of a payphone to eat. Five songs! Why would anybody even want that? But I get to think about it now, and we get to play at this beautiful club, and everybody’s here, and it’s just really cool to still be doing this! So thank you for supporting us!” To take a terrible moment that clearly stuck, because it was clearly a hell of a time, and turn it into gratitude for the community that has formed years later? An awesome perspective.
Following this short anecdote, the band goes straight into a deep cut full of low bass riffing that feels like being underwater – “Feels Blind.” 30% croony, 30% ballad, 100% “fuck you” anthem, this one has everyone swaying, nodding, and singing along under a sea of red and blue lights washing over everything. Of course, things can’t stay too slow at a punk gig, so it picks right back up with fan favorites “I Hate Danger,” “In Accordance to Natural Law,” and then a short and crazy one, “Carnival.” To hear an enormous room that holds a few thousand people in unison shout “I’ll win that Motley Crue mirror if it fucking kills me!” is both so very comical, heartwarming, and just downright fun.
Bikini Kill performs at The Salt Shed in Chicago on Sept. 14, 2026.
Leading into the next portion of their set, the band does a bit of “musical chairs” with their instruments – something that is rarely seen and takes a skillset from each member that is insanely impressive. Drummer Tobi Vail takes over on the mic, while Kathleen takes Kathi’s bass, and she finds her way onto the drums. For the next portion of the set, Tobi leads the vocals as the band performs “Capri Pants” before they move into a few more favorites including “Reject All American” and “Demi Rep.”
They sprinkle in lesser-known tracks (note: in ‘Bikini Kill’ terms, lesser-known still means very well known – this far into the game, the band’s got quite a cult following). “No Backrub”, “Sugar”, and “Tell Me So” are still hits among the rest, but nothing is reaching the same level of belting, screaming, moving, and grooving as tracks like “Double Dare Ya”, “Suck My Left One,” and the band’s encore a few more down the line: “Rebel Girl” – perhaps the soundtrack of the Riot Grrrl movement and third wave feminism revolution of the ‘90s.
In short, the revolution is still girl style now, the band of girls (now women) are running it, and their fans are there with every word behind their lips and every move in their feet, ready to take in every single second of it.
(Photos and review by Nina Tadic – follow Nina on Instagram at @ninatadiccreative)
