At no time is Sleater-Kinney's indie focus put into sharper perspective than in the minutes immediately preceding their performance. In the spirit of their iconoclastically named label, Kill Rock Stars, Janet, Corin and Carrie clamber onto the stage as soon as the preceding band has departed and go about the necessary tedium of unpacking their equipment, setting up, plugging in and tuning up. In effect, they're their own roadies. Generally, this procedure is accomplished with a minimum of fuss and without significant notice. But tonight, as soon as Janet is seen wrestling part of her kit into place, cheers erupt. The band's DIY efforts might be an intentional ploy to sidestep the traditional demarcation between performer and audience, but like it or not, tonight, the women in Sleater-Kinney are stars. People are packed into this all-ages club like sardines. Opening acts come and go, but nobody budges. No waltzing in at the last minute and strolling to the front of the stage tonight. Seattle, a mere hour's drive from Olympia, is like a second home for Sleater-Kinney. An adoring, high-spirited throng is here to cheer its favorites, and it won't be disappointed. Once again, for a fourth consecutive show, the band opens with "Start Together," but this time, the song is delivered with muscle and panache, its power finally unleashed. Another overwhelming "Call the Doctor" follows, and there's no looking back. It seems S-K finally have their sequencing figured out: one new song, one old, two new, one old, etc. "The End of You" and "God Is a Number" are again highlights of the new material. And midway through the set, the combination of a charged atmosphere and an inspired performance lends the latter portion of "Dig Me Out" a sort of white-noise incandescence. "Heart Factory" continues to amaze, and the last pre-encore number, the Call the Doctor favorite "Little Mouth," explodes from Corin's first, ferocious "Damn you!" The raucous crowd explodes in near delirium. "Last night, we played at a little college in Bellingham," Carrie says after the band re-emerges from the wings, "and it was nothing like this, so we're a little taken aback." You'd never have known it: A rollicking "Little Babies" is followed by a surprise rendition of "Be Yr Mama" from the first S-K disc. It seems accompanied by incessant screams, but by that point, overloaded synapses make it difficult to be certain. On "A Quarter to Three," Sarah Dougher from S-K offshoot Cadallaca joins in on recorder. The combination doesn't really click, but that is immaterial; we are one big, exultant family by that point. At show's end, a sweaty audience stumbles out onto Yale Avenue, slack-jawed and giddy in the transcendent manner engendered by rock music at its finest. Great, great show.