Michelle Shiers on January 29th, 2017

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Rock isn’t exactly dead when Dorothy is performing, and as the L.A. quartet would prove to a sold-out audience Saturday night at the Troubadour, there’s no place like home. Fronted by the soul-shaking Dorothy Martin, the band has a knack for authentically cheap thrills with their menacing hard rock. Their debut album, the ironically titled “ROCKISDEAD,” boasts the perfect soundtrack for the Sunset Strip in its heyday.

Dorothy joined her band wearing a flowing robe and an sexy-hippie one-piece. They opened the set with “Kiss It” and “Dark Nights” from their album, immediately showing off their metal riffs reborn into a more modern Joplin-meets-Sabbath sleaze. Along with Zac Morris on drums, DJ Black on guitar, and Gregg Cash on bass, Dorothy delivered her wall-shaking vibrato, one banger after another. While she gave off a “no fucks given” vibe, she seemed genuine and honest. Lyrically, Dorothy doesn’t cover particularly new ground — each song seems to have and repeat its raw motif, but entwined in muddy fuzz and dirty riffage, it still feels fresh from these revivalists.

Black and Cash tossed their manes around while Morris kicked off each dirty beat. “Medicine Man” and the band’s first single “After Midnight” were popular numbers of the night, but it was a cover of “I Put a Spell On You” that really seemed to cast some kind of voodoo over the whiskey-soaked crowd. The strength and texture of Dorothy’s voice doesn’t seem like something that would come from someone who looks like a pin-up model, but her classic-rock voice is as true to herself as it can be.

They closed the set with “Bang Bang” and “Whiskey Fever” and for a moment, it seemed like the audience might actually have to put in some real effort to will them back for a deserved encore. After a few minutes, they returned to perform “No Church In The Wild” and Dorothy blew a goodbye kiss to her red-lipped fans saying “Alright fuck off. That’s it. We’re done!”

Dorothy was supported by Atlanta’s The Georgia Flood with their revamped blues-rock and a cover of Alabama Shakes’ “Hold On” that really could have been their own. Opening the night was all-female indie trio True Violet who turned heads and kept them there especially with singer Devo Fresh’s vocal prowess and cover of “Gimme Shelter.”

Photos by Michelle Shiers