“We have everything from five-year-old girls to old school punkers coming to our shows,” Winona Fighter in New York City

Nashville’s punk trio Winona Fighter are hot. Literally hot. “Daddy’s getting a little dry in the pipes,” cracks Coco Kinnon, frontwoman extraordinaire, as both the band and crowd take a break to fan themselves. Silver Lining Lounge, the ritzy Bowery offshoot venue of the Moxy Lower East Side, felt the degrees ticking upwards as us lucky group of free attendees embraced the acoustic mosh sesh. After New York City-native band Savoia’s tight cover of Spoon’s “Do You” loosened the hips of the crowd, and event host Scott Lipps (of Lipps Service podcast) posed the band a handful of priming questions, Winona Fighter wasted no time ratcheting the tempo to eleven. Singer Kinnon gutturally opened the set with “I Think You Should Leave,” proving herself to be the band’s blonde bull in a china shop. Tearing through acoustic selections from the upcoming Deluxe Version of their debut album, My Apologies To The Chef (dropping September 5th) including Father Figure EP-returnee “Subaru,” bassist Austin Luther’s favorite song to record “Swear To God That I’m (FINE),” and self-deprecator’s anthem “Swimmer’s Ear,” jackets were discarded at rapid pace as the crowd grew louder and louder.
“We have everything from five-year-old girls to old school punkers coming to our shows,” Kinnon explained while introducing “ATTENTION,” the most politically-inclined track on the album. Punchy and pointed, “ATTENTION” addresses church-spurred hypocrisy, sexism, healthcare, and disillusionment with the American status-quo - but of course, this is an acoustic gig: “You have your angry version, and you have your ‘it’s Sunday morning and I’m angry’ version.” An undeniable highlight of the set (and the Deluxe album’s second single), Winona Fighter beamed with pride as the crowd clapped along to their cover of “Blister in the Sun,” mentioning their stamp of approval from “acoustic-punk originators” the Violent Femmes themselves. Bringing the crowd back to Earth, the band queued up “I’M IN THE MARKET TO PLEASE NO ONE,” written about Kinnon’s personal experience with domestic violence (“I know, bummer, sorry!”). Despite the weight of the material, Kinnon kept up momentum with a hearty dose of cope-joking and sincere gratitude to lead guitarist and best-friend Dan Fuson, and bassist/producer/husband, Austin Luther, the “very best guys she knows.” The room-shaking crowd vocals on “MARKET”’s chorus punctuation “I hope you suffer!” reinforced Kinnon’s aside that “everyone from girls to burly dudes scream-singing it” at Winona Fighter shows makes her feel less alone. Moving to the corner piano, bassist Luther plucked keys to the raw but ethereal acoustic version of “DON’T WALLOW,” another starkly different (but beautiful!) take on the original release. Rousing the crowd with the only song not featured on the album, “NYC,” the trio admitted they couldn’t visit the Big Apple without giving the local attendees a treat. And although Winona Fighter gets tongue-in-cheek with the aptly named “You Look Like A Drunk Phoebe Bridgers,” on this warm September night, Kinnon’s command of the crowd leans more toward Riot Girl Uma Thurman.

Sweaty and out of breath, Winona Fighter ripped into their biggest single, “HAMMS IN A GLASS” to cap off the performance. It’d be impossible for the neighboring dimly-lit and even-swankier wine bar to tell the night was entirely acoustic based on the final maelstrom pit call and response, “I just can’t play nice / No way, no way!” But Winona Fighter do play nice - so nice that two superfan attendees drove all the way from Pennsylvania to hand the band a Texas Roadhouse gift card mid-set. After Winona Fighter’s roaring exhibition of ten reworked tracks from My Apologies To The Chef (Deluxe), the release on September 5th is sure to have fans and new listeners alike yelling “Yes, Chef!”