photos by Dakota
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epic[ep-ik]
–adjective
1. heroic; majestic; impressively great
2. of unusually great size or extent
See also: Peaches in concert
This show far-surpassed any expectations I had prior to entering the 9:30 Club Wednesday night. While I realized that it wasn’t going to be like anything else I’d seen before, nothing could have prepared me for what was probably the most theatrically entertaining concert experience of my (21 year old) life.
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Before I get to that, though, I’ll back up for a second and tell you about Drums of Death. Well, I would tell you about Drums of Death if there were anything to tell. But as far as I’m concerned, the performance was not memorable. What I do remember is that the vocals were off, his face was painted like a bizarro Insane Clown Posse member, and when he jumped down from the stage to interact with the crowd, he pretty much had to force high-fives on people. The most I can say here is that he had some decent beats, but that’s just about the only redeeming quality. Let’s not dwell on this though.
Onward and upward to the teaches of Peaches. The show started off pitch dark with Peaches (aka Merrill Nisker) singing “I Touch Myself”, while everyone in the crowd joined in to sing along to the Divinyls classic. Next came the A Team theme song… a song that lets people know you mean business, but that you go about your business in a highly entertaining fashion.
I would say this definitely describes Peaches and her backing band Sweet Machine (Saskia Hahn, Conner Rapp, Matthias Brendel), so it was fitting that this song signaled their grand entrance. The costumes were, as expected, over the top, with Peaches sporting a giant pink… bubble tent? I haven’t quite figured out what it was yet, but it was huge and ridiculous and indicative of the crazy whirlwind of wardrobe changes that was about to ensue.
She opened with “Show Stopper”, removing her lucha libre mask to finally reveal that messy blond mullet. She then moved on to perform “Trick or Treat”, standing on top of the kick drum for the entirety of the song. I thought this was impressive, but it was nothing compared to what was coming.
She had her first of many wardrobe changes (see photos for the black and gold number that I wish I owned) and then took her first spin crowd-surfing while singing “Operate”. Now, I would like to take this opportunity to award Peaches the “Most Graceful Crowd-Surfer” trophy. Really, she’s got some serious skills in this department. She was standing up, sitting down, filming herself on a camcorder… pretty much everything short of doing push-ups… all while being held up by her fans in the middle of the crowd.
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The acrobatics did not stop there. After a momentary disappearance, the spotlight revealed that Peaches was practically hanging from the rafters. She had gone upstairs to run around the second floor, climbing all over the railing and eventually ending up back on stage. Did I mention she was not even out of breath for any of this? She did take a momentary “breather” and let Saskia take the floor with a guitar solo.
A few moments later, Peaches reappeared wearing a bathrobe and a towel wrapped around her head, claiming she’d had to go take a cold shower. She then revealed a new costume, a white leotard this time with wings that were used to project a video of her face singing along harmoniously to “Lose You”. Later, during “Talk To Me”, Peaches was joined by two backup dancers without faces, which had been replaced by gigantic heads of messy blond hair.
After all this activity, it’s only natural that a performer would be sweating. Following her next costume change into a nude leotard, she addressed her sweatiness by stating that she had not pulled a Fergie, but that she was sweaty and for whatever reason the perspiration had migrated toward her crotch. She got a spotlight on that so we could all see what she was talking about. This would not be the first or last time we were instructed to steer our eyes in this direction…
Later, she strapped on what I’d typically refer to as a mangina, kind of like in Old Greg (seriously, youtube it… if you haven’t checked it out already, it’s a must). I think she just called it a “pussy light” or something, which probably makes more sense considering it was basically just a flashlight strapped between her legs.
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Actually, apart from deep-throating a drum stick, dancing suggestively with a green laser beam and her microphone, and various instances of sexual commentary, this show was way more tame than I’d expected it to be. That being said, would I have taken my mother to see this show? I still say probably not. During “Set It Off”, as soon as she said the magic words “shirts come off”, the shirts indeed came off. Said shirts were then twirled over-head and/or thrown on-stage. Happily, my shirt stayed on.
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The fake-out final song was “Fuck the Pain Away”, but that would’ve been too neat and tidy to end with. Instead, Peaches came back out for not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR encores. That’s right, count them, four. Some of you less faithful concert-goers may be scratching your heads right now. Yeah, you should’ve stayed a while.
If you had, you might’ve even gotten to move up to the front row to have Peaches spew fake blood all over your face (I was told it was cherry flavored, but it worries me that people were tasting it). All in all, a concert of epic proportions. 27 songs (a solid mix from Impeach My Bush, Fatherfucker, and I Feel Cream), 4 encores, tons of costume changes, lasers, glowing keytars, acrobatics, fake blood…I think that to best sum up the experience I’ll leave you with a quote from one of my drunker concert-going brethren: “This is better than Britney Spears!!! Seriously!”
Duh.
