popular thinking

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, HELL'S BELLES: Right after the comedy show, I booked over to The Middle East near Cambridge's Central Square to make it mere minutes before Hell's Belles took the stage upstairs. Glad I made it. Before I go on, in full disclosure: I know the bass player, Mandy Reed, from the late 1990s, when I was the entertainment reporter at The Sun newspaper in lovely downtown Bremerton, Wash., and she was in a band called Hafacat -- one of many super-talented bands from the Kitsap Peninsula that should've been huge. Her husband, Tony (T. Dallas) Reed, has played in a ton of bands, including Treepeople with Doug Martsch, and records some great up-and-coming stuff out of his studio in Port Orchard. Her brother, Brian Jennings, has had some bands that were on the verge of stardom and plays in one band, Closure, that did get some national exposure via TVT Records. But enough about them.

Every newspaper story you read about Hell's Belles reads pretty much eggsactly the same.

Premise: Hell's Belles is not a joke.

Um, no kidding. Here is a better way to describe Hell's Belles, for those of you who haven't seen or heard them. Picture you're in your dorm room or favorite party venue, put on AC/DC and turn the volume up to 11, now make all of the members hot women who completely kick ass, and take whatever image you have and forget that, because Hell's Belles is 10 times better than that. Now open your eyes, throw your fist in the air and rock out for the next hour or two.

It's still funny, though, to watch as hundreds of jaws drop throughout a crowd (and the band members from other acts on the bill) as Hell's Belles rips through its first song of the set. The band is tight and worships the boys from Down Under as much as the crowd does. Adrian Conner works her dreadlocks and manic energy to channel Angus, whipping the fans into an even deeper frenzy. And Jamie Nova, the band's new lead singer, brings ten tons of fury. In fact, the five women of Hell's Belles seem 10-feet-tall onstage, which makes for more amusement after the show when fans learn that the gals are all between 5-foot-4 and 5-foot-1. Four of the five have their own side bands that perform original tunes, but for now, Hell's Belles is where the money and the action is. This was their first trip to Boston (and first east of Minneapolis), but expect to see them back, and in a bigger venue, sometime soon.

Check them out at www.hellsbelles.info