The Linda Lindas—who just released their album Growing Up—are really growing up fast. The teenagers have made their third late-night television appearance, this time on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon performing their fiery anthem “Oh!” Under disorienting strobe lights, the band engages the crowd with hypnotic gang vocals and a surging punk sound with a pop bounce. The lyrics, like in most rock songs, are about feeling like a screw-up: “When I say something / I wish I had shut up.” But their energy is infectious and inspiring.
About punk music, guitarist Lucia de la Garza said told Uproxx: “It’s been making a comeback, partly because of a lot of civil rights movements, a lot of political stuff and because people are saying, ‘We need to say something because it’s been going on for too long.’ Punk is amplifying your own voice when no one else will. I think that’s a really cool part of punk. Making zines is totally telling your story when no one else will tell it. Or writing music like, ‘Racist, Sexist, Boy,’ it’s telling [Mila’s] story when no one else was talking about it.”
Watch their striking performance of “Oh!” on The Tonight Show above.