Death Valley Girls with LA Witch- Two Bands from LA

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Death Valley Girls with LA Witch

Natalie’s Music Hall & Kitchen

August 7, 2022

By Michelle Waters

If you ever, ever get the chance to see Death Valley Girls perform a live show, please don’t hesitate to go. Columbus was lucky enough to see the DVG team up with LA Witch (both bands are from LA) at Natalie’s Music Hall & Kitchen on Sunday the 7th of August, and without a doubt left the entire crowd smiling goofy, satisfied grins at the end of the night.

Death Valley Girls (Credit: Michelle Waters)

Natalie’s Music Hall & Kitchen is a unique venue, housing a restaurant and stage up front (where a refined jazz performance was taking place to fancily-dressed attendees and diners). But for those who are in the know, behind the check-in desk is a dark hallway with a sign that says “stage”. It’s through this entrance that you’ll find a bar with another stage, which would soon be set on musical fire by a gang of fearless musical goddesses. It’s quite a contrast to step through those doors, transitioning between atmospheres and genres so quickly.

Most of the back stage room was standing-only, with a few tables scattered around the edges, and a small balcony for bird’s eye views. There’s not a bad seat in the house, but I highly suggest for shows like this one, getting near the stage.

Before headliners Death Valley Girls began their set, LA Witch mesmerized everyone with their dreamy psych-influenced rock. With vocals that occasionally pulled from the sounds Mazzy Star and even The Bangles, the sweetness medley nicely with the grit of the guitar and sway of the beats. They were much mellower than who would follow, but were equally entrancing.

LA Witch’s set consisted of over a dozen songs, opening with Kill My Baby Tonight, and including popular songs Firestarter, I Wanna Lose, Drive Your Car, Baby in Blue Jeans and Get Lost.

Death Valley Girls are in a world of their own, though. And that’s one of the many things I love about them. Lead vocalist Bonnie Bloomgarden is so fully committed to bringing tons of joy and wonder to each and every performance she gives, that you can’t help but smile as she shares stories about anything from road trip adventures to her candid experiences with her sound equipment, in-between songs. By the end of a Death Valley Girls set, if you’re not grinning from ear to ear, happy for getting to experience that which is Death Valley Girls as they dance and roll around the stage (and Bonnie often dances around in the crowd), you’re just not paying attention. And that’s a shame.

DVG’s genre labels range from garage rock to punk to psych, but they’re also much more. They’re magic. While they refer to this in their song Magic Powers, I think they realize how fun it can be to tap into personal power. When they performed this song during the show, Bloomgarden almost whispered the lyrics, as if she was sharing a secret she’d discovered, and we were all invited to join in on the ride.

Not many songs were performed from their most recent album, Under the Spell of Joy, but it would take a full night to share all of their greatest hits. Over the course of the evening, they also performed roughly a dozen songs which included 10 Day Miracle (from Under the Spell of Joy), a bunch of songs from their album Glow in the Dark (which matched their glowing, neon face paint): Death Valley Boogie, Seis, Seis, Seis, Disco, and I’m a Man, Too.

The takeaway is, I can’t wait to see Death Valley Girls perform live, again. They breath life into every crowd they engage with, and you can’t help but feel recharged and so in love, every single time.