Skating Polly at 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (22 June 2023)
Punk/pop Skating Polly, a young band featuring stepsisters Kelli Mayo and Peyton Bighorse with Kelli’s brother Kurtis, headlined the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis. The trio previously were endorsed and toured with punk legends X and Minneapolis’ grrrl punk band Babes in Toyland (we’ll get to that in a second!), but now headlining in support of their new record Chaos County Line. This was the first night of the tour.
Skating Polly Setlist
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Tour Dates
06/24 Chicago, IL – Beat Kitchen
06/25 St. Louis, MO – Blueberry Hill
06/27 Columbus, OH – Rumba Café
06/28 Hamtramck, MI – Small’s
06/29 Toronto, ON – Bovine Sex Club
06/30 Montreal, PQ – Turbo Haus
07/1 Portsmouth, NH – Press Room
07/2 Cambridge, MA – Middle East
07/6 Brooklyn, NY – St. Vitus Bar
07/7 Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie
07/8 Washington, DC – Comet Ping Pon
07/9 Richmond, VA – Capital Ale House
07/11 Carraboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
07/12 Atlanta, GA – Purgatory
07/13 Orlando, FL – Will’s Pub
07/15 Pensacola, FL – Handlebar
07/16 New Orleans, LA – Santos
08/25 Olympia, WA – South Sound Block Party
Opening the show was Surly Grrly (a band led by Medbh McNamara & Eloïse Boigenzahn), who wasn’t originally on the bill. We previously liked them with the Aquadolls in May 2023, describing them as “very Bikini Kill”.
They’ve changed up their setlist a bit (as well as hiring a new bassist Lou Levy) since we last saw them, starting with “I Had Sex with a Girl”, a song that they’ve previously mentioned that most guys who come up to them said they’ve had the very same experience.
Highlight of their set was a cover of Babes in Toyland’s “Sweet 69”.
Next up was Bugsy, who we saw lead singer/guitarist Emily Schoonover lending her musical talent to Dad Bod in Oct 2022: “The Minneapolis-based band normally has Grace Baldwin for bass, but for the October 24th show, she was out celebrating her birthday. Instead, Emily Schoonover from Bugsy stepped in at the last minute.” Dad Bod liked Emily so much, they joked that they wanted Emily as a permanent band member.
Bugsy (Emily Schoonover, Shannon Maroney, Alex Norman and Griffen Desai) seemed to drew in the local crowd, which isn’t a surprise, considering how much love they get on TikTok. The band is fairly new, starting with their debut EP Teratoma in 2020 (during the pandemic).
Their latest single, “Slip N’ Slide” is out now, and it may or may not be appearing in a new 2023 EP that the band is working on. In the meantime, you can hear their songs on their national tour with Skating Polly.
Closing out the set was Skating Polly. We first saw the band in May 2017 and wrote, “The history of Skating Polly actually started in 2009, when the two step-siblings, Kelli Mayo and Peyton Bighorse were just 9 and 14, respectively. While we were curious about the duo, having written about them last year, the band made a big change in their DIY band in 2017: they added their brother Kurtis Mayo to the lineup.”
Then, four months later, in Sep 2017, we saw them again with X. As we previously mentioned, X was a big fan of the trio and asked them to tour with them for their 40th Anniversary as a band.
Six years later, Skating Polly is back with Chaos County Line, as they’ve matured from punk/riot music to more art-punk and even piano-driven power-pop, as found on the new record. As you can see from the setlist, the band mostly stuck to the new songs, but that’s fine, as my favorite song on their set was the energized “Hickey King”, which was played early in their set, with both Kelli and Peyton trading off vocals.
Peyton had the nice lyrics, while Kelli had the much meaner lyrics.
Skating Polly’s double album Chaos County Line is out now.
Catch the band on tour with Bugsy and Jacklen Ro.
