NOTE: All photos are copyright of Dean Keim 2025
The Philly punk band Mannequin Pussy played an intimate late night show at a sold out Warsaw in Greenpoint, Brooklyn for an event called Gov Ball After Dark, an after-hours shindig that took place the day after they performed on the big stage at the Governor’s Ball Festival in Flushing Meadows, Queens. This band has been kicking around the indie scene since 2010 and is a group I first saw play at a Halloween show at Lit Lounge in the East Village back in 2013. From their earliest beginnings, I could tell that frontwoman Marisa “Missy” Dabice was powerhouse vocalist, an enchanting spell-caster, and a fiery rock star in the making. The band has gone through a lot of changes since those early days, with Missy being the only remaining original musician. These days, she is joined by drummer Kaleen Reading (playing with her since around 2015), Colins “Bear” Regisford (laying down the bass beat since 2016), Maxine Steen (the main axe woman for the last few years), and multi-instrumentalist Carolyn Haynes (helping to fill out the sound). They have been riding high since the release of their damn-near perfect album I Got Heaven last year and it seems clear they are finally getting some of the industry respect and commercial success they deserve at a time when we desperately need activists of the highest caliber fighting the good fight.
A sweeping shoegaze band by the name of Deux Visages opened the show and they bewitched the crowd with a spaced out combination of sounds that still had a some real loudly rocking moments. Their name is French for “Two Faces,” and they do have a duality thing working for them, with jangly and fuzzy sounds pairing and contrasting with a brash and disorderly reverberation. They display some beguiling shades of indie, shoegaze, grungy garage, and surf rock, all of which meld into some ear-catching melodies that can really cook. The band is fronted by a softly withdrawn singer Daphney Homono who can really roar when you least expect it. She’ll sadly mop around the stage and then she’ll suddenly start hopping around happily like nothing matters. She was joined by Antoine Lappin on drums, Jack Chiu on guitar, and Tony Jouvin on bass, together creating something very interesting. This group of Miami indie rockers clearly have a lots of different influences working within their sound, but they do find their own original flavor that is both sweet and salty.
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Mannequin Pussy came out around 11:45pm and played a blistering set that went well into the early morning. Dabice was on fire throughout the show, showing off her sexy side while still showing how deeply pissed off she was with multiple lengthy diatribes against the horrors of the present wave of conservative values sweeping across America these days. She railed against everything from the patriarchal controls over womanhood to the war in Gaza. The video projections that played behind the band was also very impressive, with graphics and visuals that showed off their slickly raw and punky visual presence. High points for me were new tracks like the thumping power of “Loud Bark” as well as the visceral rocker “I Got Heaven”, followed by the raw punk rawr of “Of Her”, as well as other older tracks like “Drunk II” and the powerful closer “Romantic.” As late as the show went, I couldn’t tear myself away from the blistering magic show they crafted. It exhausted me in every way possible, yet it all still inspired me to fight and love as well as create and destroy. If you have a chance to see them live don’t you dare miss out as you’d be a damn fool not to do something so reckless.
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