Staff Editor on August 14th, 2018

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With five albums, four EPs, and 18 years of collecting music fans, the Kills easily sold out the Regent on Monday night. It was a hot, packed, and sweaty experience, but the energy stayed high through both the Kills’ and opener Saul Williams‘ sets. Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince didn’t chit-chat too much, instead rolling one song into another seamlessly except for a little hiccup where Mosshart missed a cue, stopped a song, and decided it was better to just start that one over again. Williams joined the Kills in performing “List of Demands (Reparations),” a song of his that they recently remixed. During the encore, Mosshart played “That Love” solo on acoustic guitar, before being joined by the rest of the band for three more tunes.

For his own set, Williams performed in front of a slideshow that combined propaganda-style imagery, including portraits of Nikola Tesla, Martin Luther King, Jr. and David Bowie, with text from Williams’ poetry and lyrics. When the image of activist Assata Shakur came up, Williams took a moment to educate the audience about her life and controversial history — which includes being imprisoned on questionable evidence in the 1970s for the murder of a police officer, escaping prison, fleeing to Cuba and being on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list. He recommended everyone read her autobiography, “Assata.”

The Kills and Saul Williams reprise their show tonight at the Glass House.

Setlist: Heart of a Dog, URA Fever, Kissy Kissy, Hard Habit, Black Balloon, Baby Says, Tape Song, Echo Home, Sour Cherry, Doing It To Death, Whirling Eye, List of Demands, Pots and Pans, Monkey 23. Encore: That Love, Siberian Nights, Steppin Razor, Fried My Little Brains.

Photos by Andie Mills