Gig review: Peaches in Auckland

There was crowd surfing, a stage invasion, and theatrics galore as Peaches rocked the Powerstation in Auckland. Reviewer Tracey Bond went along for the ride.

Peaches
Where: Powerstation, Auckland
When: Wednesday, September 24

"Guess who?" yelled Peaches, clad in an outlandish outfit that would put Madonna to shame, before leaping off her perch on top of the drum set.

Peaches - aka Merrill Nisker - never shies away from controversy. The former school teacher had her electro-punk schooling in the Berlin underground scene and her songs are littered with expletives and sexual references.

Provocative her lyrics may be, but there is a level of intelligence about her carefully crafted, electro-tinged beats.

Wearing an oversized pink puffball jacket, she opened her set with two songs from her new, unreleased album, backed by her band Sweet Machine.

Throughout the set she clambered on top of speaker stacks and at one point climbed up onto the balcony to "meet the people back here".

Peaches the performer clearly has nothing to hide, as all of her costume changes were in full view of the audience.

A few songs in the pink puffball jacket came off to reveal a harlequin-esque black and gold body suit with massive puffed sleeves.

Later the sleeves came off to reveal a gold body suit. It was like watching a human version of pass-the parcel in action.

Halfway through the gig the focus changed to her older songs. For Boys Wanna Be Her she brought out the bright pink hotpants worn on the album cover for The Teaches of Peaches.

"I've been carrying round these smelly things for a while," she told the crowd to huge cheers, "so I'm going to smell them for you and wear them for you."

She took up the guitar to huge whoops from the audience on several tracks.

And the girl can really sing, demonstrating an amazing range throughout the set and outstanding vocals on a new love song.

"How about that?" she asked the audience. "Peaches wrote a ballad."

Someone at the front responded that it was very civilised of her.

"Civilised?' she snarled. "I'm naked here, you can see my pussy hair. What's civilised about that?"

To prove the point she also indulged in some crowd surfing with security looking worried, but she carried on singing while being manhandled by fans.

But the fans were determined to be a bigger part of the show. During crowd pleaser Lovertits, first one girl got on stage to dance wildly with Peaches, then another, then another, until the stage was seething with people.

Peaches was nonplussed, finishing the song by announcing, "Let's all have sex here right now," before moving smoothly into the opening bars of Set It Off.

"Shirts come off," she chanted at the crowd, "don't make me a liar!"

That prompted a female fan to take off her shirt and throw it at her, which Peaches promptly put on.

For the track Kick It - originally fearuring Iggy Pop - her keyboard player was given a quick makeover. Shirt off, long hair over face and voila, instant Iggy stand in.

There were more costume shenanigans for the final song - F@#$ the Pain Away - as she donned a belt with a flashing crotch light to massive cheers from the audience.

She returned a short while later to perform Rockshow, You Love It and a riotous grungy version of Cum Undone.

As she left the stage the audience remained rooted to the spot, hoping she would be back again. It was a while before the elated fans finally started to drift out of the Powerstation.

Peaches will be a hard act for other bands to follow at the venue.

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- © Fairfax NZ News