Liverpool Sound and Vision 9/10

There is a lot of talk that gets bandied around as if it is the truest form of opinion, laced with the narrow statements of statistics which presents itself as facts, is somehow justified when it comes to declaring just who was the most important, perhaps the supremely influential, or even the finest to have ever graced a stage and performed music that sparked a revolution.

The trouble with revolutions is that not everybody sees it happen, not all are able to bear witness to the seismic shift in popular attitude in which former Kings are toppled, and in which a gynecocracy becomes the dominant force; or rather in the case of The Go-Go’s, an anarchy of class to which the only limit was the one they found themselves in, and even then they bought about their own special brand of anarchy which propelled them to being seen as the band that captured and framed the zeitgeist that the Punk age had been waiting for.

A quieter revolution may have been stirring in the heartlands of Britain, led by the likes of Kate Bush, but for true rebellion, for the first shots fired of a revolt against the dominance of the male psyche in the arena of hard-hitting Punk attitude, and songs that would see them converse on a deeper level with their audience, The Go-Go’s are surely the group in which the music lover should bow their head in solemn respect and then rage at the beauty of it all.

There is no room for candidness in the world of the documentary, the waters have long since rumbled on, more bridges have been built to cross the rapids, and in a world happy to be placed inside a sterile tube and remarked upon by the unadventurous, a documentary on the Go-Go’s the band that honed the talent, the affairs, the partying, the lifestyle, the mix of drugs, booze and unfiltered brilliance, the colour and existence of such a drama filled group deserves the full colour expose afforded by this particular documentary directed by Alison Ellwood.

Kick-ass, an overused term in a time when the word amazing gets handed around like confetti at a wedding; and yet as this documentary shows, whether through the archive footage or in the frankness of the modern interview, Charlotte Caffey, Belinda Carlisle, Gina Schock, Kathy Valentine and Jane Wiedlin, as well as Elissa Bello, Margaret Olaverra and the band’s original, formidable and dedicated manager, Ginger Canzoneri, this is not just a band who were on top for a while, or who made the world take notice just because they were women; this was a band willing to fight, to claw, and willing to implode, if it meant they became the biggest and best noise around.

Revolutions come and go, often there are casualties, and some are rewarded with immortality, as Alison Ellwood’s documentary shows, The Go-Go’s provided their own sense of forever, of the eternal, and even if you didn’t live through the earthquake delivered by all female band, there is no reason to not find a way to live through it after the fact and revel in what is a story of talent, drive and sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, with a huge helping of brilliance thrown in.

Ian D. Hall