Lily Allen is fierce, feisty and unapologetic

Girls rule, man.

You should have been at the Showbox Monday night. All of you, everybody reading this, should have been there, for the incredible experience of rocking with British spitfire Lily Allen and getting sexy and silly with the remarkable, delightful Inara George, daughter of the late, great Lowell George of Little Feat.

Allen is a straight-talking, no-nonsense, 21st-century woman who says what she thinks and does what she wants. She spoke frankly about everything from what a trip to Mexico did to her bodily functions to her hairy armpits. She slugged shots of Jägermeister until she said she was drunk, and smoked onstage, insisting she could because it was part of the act.

Her irreverent, sassy, explicit songs, propelled by irresistible reggae rhythms from her tight seven-piece band (including three horns), had the packed Showbox crowd bobbing, dancing, smiling and cheering, and couples dirty dancing all over the place.

Allen, who also has a show-business pedigree (her father is Keith Allen, a prominent British actor), displayed the assurance and swagger of a newly-minted, fearless young star, and it was bracing to feel that freshness and aplomb close-up in the Showbox.

She has only one album out, "Alright, Still," and concentrated on songs from it, with many in the crowd singing along. She covered Blondie's "Heart of Glass" and it felt like a tribute to another dangerous, straight-talking rock star who must be an inspiration, Deborah Harry.

While most of the songs sizzled with sexual tension and release, Allen showed she could handle a sweet ballad with a cover of Keane's "Everybody's Changing."

But the cover highlight came when guitarist Lynval Golding of the 1980s Brit/ska band The Specials, now a Seattle resident, joined Allen and the band for "My Tears Come Falling Down Like Rain." Allen said it meant a lot to her and the band, and pointed out that it was a moment only the Seattle audience will experience.

Imagine Sleeping Beauty awakened as a bad girl, who slit her bodice down to her navel, displaying dangerous cleavage, strapped on a bass guitar, and sweetly sang "Are you going to be my [bleeping] boyfriend?"

That gives you an idea of what Inara George, lead singer of The Bird and the Bee, was like. A beautiful, smutty princess right out of a bizarro Disneyland, she sang sexy, subversive pop songs with tinkly, jingling, sweet arrangements from a talented band. They covered "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" and most of their original songs were in the same hip, poppy groove. Delicious.

Patrick MacDonald: 206-464-2312 or pmacdonald@seattletimes.com