[MUSIC]
Governor Hindmarsh Hotel, Wed 1 Mar, 2023.
How is Teaches Of Peaches 20 years old (actually 23 years old)? That doesn’t seem right, or even possible! And yet here we are The 20thAnniversay tour of one of the most popular ‘alternative’ albums of the 2000s. Peaches has always been bold, fearless and confronting. Kick ass songs full of sexual empowerment, language and imagery that have probably kept her off radios station playlists she couldn’t give a shit about being not being played on. A regular visitor to these shores and is always rapturously welcomed by her legion of fans. The Gov is paced with the faithful and even the set-up of the stage makes it very obvious it’s not a regular rock’n’roll gig.
There is a tiered staging with a drum kit and one little sampler thingy on a stand at the front. Peaches makes her entrance with a walking frame and a vagina headpiece, and the implication is twenty years ago is a long time ago and we are all getting older. Soon she kicks into Set It Off and she has kicked over the walker and stripped down to flesh coloured underwear and pasties. “I’m already naked and it’s the first song!”. Anybody shocked by nudity at a Peaches show clearly has not been getting the memos for 20+ years. It’s a particularly unique style of nudity too. It’s bold, self-aware, funny, and most of all has a strong ownership. It’s not ‘for the male gaze’, it’s a celebration of sexual empowerment and pro-sex feminism. Powerful stuff.
It’s twenty years of Teaches Of Peaches and we get the whole album (in a randomised order), with Hot Rod, Cum Undone, Diddle My Skiddle, (including her walking out into the crowd on the audiences’ hands amazing) Keine Melodien, Sucker all Electro-Clash anthems with each introducing a drummer, guitarist and several dancers all as disrobed as Peaches. The audience goes nuts for Rock Show, an all-time classic 2000’s Indie banger. With such a sparse stage set up there is plenty of space for the dances and routines to be a big focus. I love that her cover of Berlin’s ‘80’s classic Sex (I’m A….) is included tonight (originally it was a bonus track on a later edition of the CD). AA XXX, Lovertits, Felix Partz all slay and the dancers, get more frenetic and there are various ‘costumes’ (or parts thereof) and insane energy through the room.
Shake Your Dix goes down super well and is only one of two songs included from the 2003 Father****er album. It’s actually been a few years since we got a new full Peaches album (2015’s Rub) but there have been a few one-off singles and collaborations including Bodyline, which we get before the rockin’ Boys Wanna Be Her, Talk To Me and last year’s standalone single Pussy Mask (inspired by the pandemic). Operate (FF), Vaginaplasty and Dick In The Air, both from Rub, close out the set. Before the thunderous response brings them back to the stage for the epic Fuck The Pain Away (I knew we were missing a song from Teaches Of…). People are dancing like crazy and how could they resist!?
She again returns a does a long and meandering version of the Jim Steinman written It’s All Coming Back To Me Now. Steinman was the writer of all of Bat Out Of Hell and had a penchant for cinematic, rock‘n’roll theatrics (which I love). It’s All Coming Back To Me Now was on his solo project Pandora’s Box, but then a huge hit for Celine Dion (and Meatloaf did it too). Tonight, Peaches takes several (increasingly bold) liberties with the lyrics. The original has a lyric that goes, “When you touch me like this, and I touch you like that”, let’s just say Peaches take on the song was a lot more hard core and hilarious!
My gig partner said on the way home said that the show was like watching John Waters direct Liquid Sky, starring The Tubes, in the Mars Bar off the LA Strip. I concur!
4 stars
Ian Bell
#Clothesline_Mag
#TheGov
SETLIST:
Set it Off (Teaches of Peaches 2000)
Hot Rod (Teaches of Peaches 2000)
Cum Undone (Teaches of Peaches 2000)
Diddle My Skiddle (Teaches of Peaches 2000)
Keine Melodien (Teaches of Peaches 2000)
Sucker (Teaches of Peaches 2000)
Rock Show (Teaches of Peaches 2000)
Suck & Let Go (Teaches of Peaches 2000)
Sex (I’m A…) – Berlin cover
AA XXX (Teaches of Peaches 2000)
Lovertits (Teaches of Peaches 2000)
Felix Partz (Teaches of Peaches 2000)
Shake Yer Dix (Father****er 2003)
Bodyline (Single 2015)
Boys Wanna Be Her (Impeach my Bush 2006)
Talk To Me (I Feel Cream 2009)
Pussy Mask (Single 2021)
Vaginoplasty (Rub 2015)
Operate (Father****er 2003)
Dick In the Air (Rub 2015)
Fuck The Pain Away (Teaches of Peaches 2000)
It’s All Coming Back To Me Now (Pandoras Box/Celine Dion cover)
The Clothesline Rating...
Ian Bell
Hard core and hilarious.
