Peaches – Powerstation Auckland: Feb 20, 2023

On Monday night, the unforgettable weird and wacky electropunk world of Peaches was brought to the Powerstation. Following this gig she will go on to do two sell-out nights at Meeow in Wellington.

Peaches is the undeniable queen of the feminist electronica genre. Her boundary-pushing songs are all sexually explicit. But the music is just half the story. The development of this stage show is mind-boggling. Where does she get the ideas from? A mind blowing explosion of costumes (or lack of them) and dance and visual madness. Although this tour is named after her second album The Teaches of Peaches which was released in 2000, so much more has been included from her back catalogue of 6 albums, and with a new one to be released shortly.

Theia

The evening was kicked off by the perfect warm-up artist Theia who could be a Peaches prodigy herself.

On a black stark empty stage, a table was set up, a DJ came on to start the music and on strides a black satin dressed gothic doll with huge blond platted hair. She has named herself after the Greek Goddess of Devine Light and her songs could be seen as a rebellion against her upbringing in a conservative Christian community.

Her strong edgy set dealt with public perception of her image and sexuality. Her songs have powerful messages about how society degrades women backed by an electro-pop dance beat. Her lyrics have to be listened to, such as Candy with the lines “I’m a killer Queen, I do my own thing” and Kitty Kat “Call me a slut when I dress like that”.

Theia’s latest releases are 99% Angel and Celebrity, “people would do anything to be seen as famous”. And then her last two songs, the dark Creep including Te Reo lyrics deals with the subject of taking down pedos and her favourite song Crucified by U, about a girl processing her childhood trauma, with the line “I’m a witness now and you can burn in hell”. A very strong set and I am looking forward to her first album release expected later this year.

Peaches

And then stage was empty again… the audience was surprised as Peaches, complete with shiny pink jacket and ‘boob’ slippers and a ‘vulva’ hat, slowly pushed a Zimmer frame onto the stage.

She explained that this is her Teaches of Peaches anniversary show. During the first song, Set it off, set to a prerecorded electro backing track, the Zimmer frame was quickly discarded as were most of her clothes leaving just a black T-shirt with the message “thank God for abortion”.

I love this unique live event energy. The audience were certainly slightly more exhibitionist and colourful than is usual at rock concerts. Shortly after, the T-shirt too was discarded and as Peaches transitioned to the second song Hot Rod a ‘maid’ came on stage to help dress her in what appears to be Prince’s bolero jacket covered with long strands of white hair.

As Peaches sang “show us what you’ve got, rub against my thigh” an acrobatic “Columbia” type from the Rocky Horror Show complete with electric guitar and Prodigy hair cut, joined her on stage to blast out a power chord accompaniment. In song three Cum Undone a scantily clad drummer appeared and at last the band is complete.

Before song four, Diddle my Skittle, this Canadian Queen of electronica announced that it is time for her to walk on the audience, which she did, while singing “cos there’s only one peach with the hole in the middle”!

Back on stage she was handed her own gold flying V guitar to sing her German “hit” Keine Melodien – “Ein zwei dei vier…”. Sounding a bit like a demented Suzi Quatro (which is a good thing!) the song Sucker got the evening rocking albeit with continuous references to various genitalia. In fact these references appear in every song!

It seems that between and during every song clothing is added… and removed from all band members. The stage, now with two scantily clad dancers, had become like a scene from the Rocky Horror Show meets Mad Max’s Thunderdome, a riot of bodies as Peaches gives the cleft of her “flying V” a good lick in the song Rockshow.

And then they all began a synchronized striptease together during Suck and Let Go as many pairs of knickers were removed. Her two dancing sirens gyrated seductively to “we make love together, we make love forever” during the cover of the song Sex, originally (in 1982) by the band Berlin. Her helpers now dressed her in the hot and heavy diva costume that appears to be made of Rapunzel’s hair and the dancing sirens returned with “Cousin It” (from the Addams Family) wigs and not much else. With Lovertits being the last of the songs from the album The Teaches of Peaches, we were then treated to a medley of her prolific back catalog.

Highlights? The rock anthem Boys wanna be her and the pantomime relationship between Peaches and her guitarist, who she ended up chasing off the stage in Talk to Me. In Vaginaplasty my mates two friends, Hamish and Hayley, who happened to be wearing very anatomically correct vulva hats were invited on stage to join the dancers who were also now wearing huge vagina costumes (you really had to be there!).

And then, a huge condom was rolled out over the audience and inflated so that Peaches could walk inside it as she performed Dick In The Air. At the end, she was able to squirt some green stuff through an orifice in the end of the giant condom over the very receptive audience below.

The performance lasted the best part of two hours and included two encores in which Peaches was joined by Theia to perform Fuck the Pain Away.

Peaches finally returned to the stage with a costume with five extra breasts to beautifully cover an X-rated version of the ballad It’s all coming back to me now, representing how she had to try to remember what it felt like way back when she made the album. It was a fabulous contrast to the more raucous earlier songs and a fitting end to the evening.

Michael Grunfeld

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Brenna Jo Gotje

Peaches:

Theia:

Set lists:

 Theia

Freak into Freak Remix

Frat Boyz

Candy

Kitty Kat

99% Angel

Not Your Princess

Celebrity

Creep

Crucified by U

Peaches

Set It Off

Hot Rod

Cum Undone

Diddle My Skittle

Keine Melodien

Sucker

Rockshow

Suck And Let Go

Sex

AA XXX

Lovertits

Shake Your Dicks

Bodyline

Boys Wanna Be Her

Talk To Me

Pussy Mask

Vaginaplasty

Operate

Dick In The Air

Encore:

Fuck The Pain Away

Coming Back To Me