Wed 1 Oct – Peaches, Hawnay Troof, Ben Ely's Radio 5
While the Palace Theatre, formally known as the Metro Nightclub has been trying to re-aim itself from a dance venue to a live rock one over the last few months, but the dress sense of the audience is unlike that of any rock gig I’ve been to before. The pink fluro brigade is out in full force offering free hugs to other crowd members, while other fans are offering complete strangers royal blue flannelette shirts. A teenage boy is wearing a sleeveless jacket covered in navy sequins, and two Asian-Australians stand on the elevated walkways trying their best to look like
Björk. I guess it should only be expected that these kind of people turn out for electroclash artist
Peaches, and they turned out in full force for a night full of fancy outfits, crude lyrics and an artist willing to perform anywhere in the building.
But before the audience could take in glorious
Peaches, they first had to stomach the two warm-up acts. Ben Ely, better known as the bassist of
Regurgitator had his side project
Ben Ely’s Radio 5 up on stage to perform some power-pop, but from the band’s performance energy was going conserved. Ely is playing a drum kit dead centre on stage, and stands straight up during the entire set as he uses one standard drum stick and one ball shaped mallet. While it was interesting to watch, simplistic lyrics and song structure made for a largely boring set to the small crowd who got to the Palace early. When guitarist Steve Bourke introduces a slow song about punk rock called
Slam Dance, he is so nervous that he stutters his words, sounding like a scared thirteen year old playing with his dead. He makes up for it in his performance, including several lengthy solos during
Do It! that make the song sound like a boss battle from Guitar Hero. This performance demonstrates that the act has very little legs and won’t become anything more than a side project.
Up second was the man from the Bay Area (something he repeated several times),
Hawnay Troof. Dressed in a grey suit with a deep red dress shirt and matching Adidas, he would do forward rolls across the stage while performing a bizarre raps over beats generated from his laptop. While it was slightly cute on song one, the act got stale faster than a sliced apple left out in the sun. He tries to get the crowd on side and kisses up Melbourne mentioning how laid back yet crazy Melbournians are, but suggests that Adelaide is full of weirdos who make bongs out of trash from their garbage cans. He jumps into the crowd and just like
Dan Deacon, gets the punters near the front of the stage to circle him and rise and fall to his music; but when he tries to get the crowd to chant the name of song
This is our invite, he has to explain how to chant it and the crowd still doesn’t follow along. Some may say that
Hawnay Troof makes experimental music, but the truth is that he really makes musical garbage.
The Palace’s floor is packed by the time
Peaches and her backing band
The Sweet Machine hits the stage.
The Sweet Machine are dressed in black Mexican wrestling style masks, shirts and pants while
Peaches kept the mask and had a wireless microphone, and wore tall wrestling boots, a flesh coloured bodysuit and an super oversized pink puffy jacket. She started the show with a number of dance based tracks such as
Hit It Hard with it’s heavy synth echoing through the venue. At this point
Peaches demonstrated that she was wearing several layers of clothing, revealing a black and gold harlequin inspired dress with puffy arms, allowing her to pump her guns to the crowd.
At this point of the show
Peaches showed why it’s important for her to have a wireless microphone. During
Operate she climbed onto the skinny barricade that separates the photo pit and the audience and walked up and down it like a gymnast as the crowd rushed the stage. A girl propped up on her boyfriend’s shoulders is handed the microphone and yells out the lyrics “JUST KEEP IT GOING” which brings a smile to
Peaches face. During the next track, she climbed onto the triangle box next to the stage before escaping up the stairs onto the elevated walkway to perform next to some lucky fans while security slowly chases behind.
There’s even more stripping as the show goes on when she reveals a black singlet with an upside down male fist flipping the bird while playing
Shake Yer Dix and when she finally strips down to her bodysuit, she unzips a zip at her crotch to reveal a flashlight pointing out at the crowd. The best part of her show comes when she plays hit
Kick It.
Iggy Pop may not be on site, but Sweet Machine keys player Conner takes off his shirt, sticks a silver wig on his head and a sock down the front of his pants and makes for a near-perfect replacement.
Peaches may do crazy things on stage but she’s an incredible musician, taking up the guitar for
Boys Wanna Be Her and
Rock Show, and her voice is just as perfect as it was when her albums were recorded. The Sweet Machine are the perfect backing band for her as they have her songs down pat and help out with the on-stage festivities.
Peaches &
The Sweet Machine make for the perfect team, and together they created an excellent show. Some may say that
Peaches act is getting a little stale at this point, but she proved that she can bring it and the punters at the Palace still want to see it.
Björk
