Live Review: Peaches

Peaches, aka Merill Beth Nisker, rocked up on stage in all her mighty glory wearing a full bodysuit covered in sequinned handprints, bright pink body armour and a sequinned cape with shoulder pads practically larger than her head. Anyone searching for a sexual awakening needn’t look any further than a Peaches concert.

She started with Show Stopper before delving into Rub, Operate and Talk To Me, where her gender-bending backup dancers emerged wearing full-sized animated vagina costumes, wiggling, shaking and groovin’ about on stage while Peaches sang of vaginoplasty and pranced around, baring her teeth and even jumping into the audience to crowd-surf. She emerged with bottles of champagne, shook them up and shot them into the crowd before taking a swig herself, and spraying it back into the crowd in classic Peaches fashion.

Halfway though the show her dancers returned to the stage wearing nothing but fishnets, knee-high Converses and tank tops that read ‘WHOSE JIZZ IS THIS’, bound together by leather handcuffs, dribbling and vomiting neon glow paint onto themselves. For AA XXX, Peaches crowd-surfed inside a giant transparent, condom-shaped balloon, which sprawled out at least ten metres into the crowd and had fans absolutely gobsmacked and entranced at the glorious, sexually untamed creature before them.

The night somehow ended up at a slightly awkward stage, Peaches stopping the show in a seemingly desperate and somewhat tacky attempt to start selling T-shirts from the stage, fanny pack and all. This appealed to the more hardcore, enthusiastic fans lucky enough to have their tee rubbed up on her chest and crotch before she threw them into the crowd.

Ending with Back It Up, Boys and Shake Yer Dix, Peaches reaffirmed her rock star status. Promising more than just a performance, she consistently pushes the boundaries of gender identity and aggressively confronts the traditional concepts of sexuality. This is one show not to be missed.