The George Tavern, I am told, is a place where legends are made. My friend tells me this as he arrives straight from London fencing society, still half in his whites, fully committed to the idea that tonight will deliver something special. A thin crowd slowly becomes a packed one, everyone clearly timing their arrival for the next band: Babydolldeadbeat.
The front rows are mostly women, and the mosh pit feels like a shared space to be bounced around by the music rather than a site of exclusion. The band seems aware of that dynamic and are comfortable with it.
“We’re pleased men enjoy it,” they say, “but we live for the female perspective. We make music for girls,” they say simply. “When the fems are having fun, we know we’re doing it right.”
The singer’s hushed, sultry vocals sit against sudden bursts of aggression from the band. When she croons, “I’m tired of singing,” it does not feel like a break in the performance, it feels like a handover. She steps back, and Paris, the bassist, takes over, locking into a cool, funky groove that shifts the whole room’s momentum.
With her afro reaching heavenwards, Paris reminds me of Willow or Skunk Anansie. She is rage personified and I can feel the furor of her attitude from across the pub. It is the first time all night I consider descending into the mosh.
The name Babydolldeadbeat itself comes from contradiction as much as instinct. In our interview, Connie explains that “Babydoll” is taken from Sucker Punch (2011), a character the band describes as something like a guardian angel figure, soft but not powerless. “Deadbeat,” by contrast, was chosen specifically to disrupt that softness, to undercut it.
“We were just like, why not stick them together,” they tell me. “The band feels like the duality of both.”
The lead singer, Connie, moves slowly under the pink lights, almost theatrical in her control of space. There is something deliberately vintage about her look; a faux Marilyn Monroe glamour or 50s Americana refracted through a punk lens. There is an essence of Stevie Nicks too, witchy and defiant, twirling in and out of their set.
At the edge of the pit, my friend leans over, sweaty and grinning. “Don’t you want to gently bash other people?”
The contrast of controlled beauty versus the uncontrollable chaos of punk becomes part of the act.
I answer honestly that if someone bumps me, I might hit them, so I am staying where I am. But my hesitancy is outbid by the bassist who descends from the stage with her guitar, spun around like a beyblade and still keeping beat. I watch the slick sheen of foreheads, the blur of limbs, and think of the ways in which joy and aggression commune to share a language. Someone gets shoved directly in front of me and turns around absolutely beaming, smiling so wide I have to look away.
The frenetic energy of the mosh doesn’t deter the band’s control either. Even as the room swells, Connie holds a cool, steady presence, swaying through shifts in the set that move effortlessly into higher keys and sudden changes in intensity.
“It’s natural dopamine,” they say later in the smoking area. “It’s like a drug. When you get a taste of real pure engagement, when you’re screaming into the void and the void screams back, it’s fucking insane.”
The band talks to me about building setlists after arriving at the venue, reading the crowd and deciding what kind of night it is going to be.
“I know that when I do Resilience in Charlie, I let the freestyle take over,” Paris explains. “If I feel the audience is going to respond to repetition or anger, I lean into that chaos. If it is a night where people just want to observe, then I bring continuity.”
“It is like a DJ set,” she adds. “You think about what journey they want to go on.”
The band consists of Connie on vocals, Paris on bass and vocals, Emily on guitar, and Anna on drums, a four-piece ensemble built around four distinct front-woman personalities rather than a single focal point. Instead, different members take ownership at different times, each one shifting the direction of the room in their own way.
“We’re all massive personalities,” Connie tells me weeks later. They are joining me via Zoom from Regent’s Park and the signal keeps dropping in and out. “Four front women with different skills and tastes. It is easier for us to make space than to flatten ourselves into one identity. We’re just too big.”
And that is exactly what it looks like in practice. The energy never settles on one person for too long. It moves and it shifts like a snake. There is also a clear sense of intention in how they talk about their audience.
By the end of the set, the room is exhausted in the best possible way. Sweat hangs in the air, and nobody looks like they want it to end even though everyone is clearly spent.
“I think we’ve made our presence known through our unapologetic online presence,” they say. “People are ready for something different. A lot of this scene feels like it is being recycled and we are trying to bring something new.”
After their set, they are visibly wrecked. Breathing hard, skin still shining under the lights. “The crowd gave it good,” one member says, still sweating. “We came with no expectations, but we fucking killed it.” And in a cramped toilet conversation after, a French girl I met sums it up: “They’re girls’ girls. It was all so special. Everyone was shining at different moments.”
Babydolldeadbeat are not trying to smooth their contradictions out, and I don’t think they ever will be. They are holding everything at once and letting it clash in real time. Glamour and aggression. Control and chaos. Softness and violence.
Neither cancels the other out, because the contradiction is the point.
