Speechless for Peaches

Last night I ventured out to Macau to see Electro-Punk Shock Rocker PEACHES- who has been praised by music legends such as Madonna, Joan Jett and Iggy Pop. Born in Canada, Merrill Beth Nisker quit teaching in her 30’s and decided to move to Berlin to pursue a career in music. She was reincarnated as Peaches- an androgynous songstress with a trashy mullet whose incendiary lyrics make conservatives cringe.

Peaches’ music is a mixture of Rock, Rap and Punk. Her songs are profane and sexually charged yet catchy and undoubtedly brilliant. Since 2000, Peaches has put out 4 albums- ‘Teaches of Peaches’, ‘Fatherfucker’ (as opposed to motherfucker), ‘Impeach my Bush’ and her current album ‘I Feel Cream’.

My friend and I took the high speed catamaran to the Cotai Strip a little early so we could explore a little bit of old Taipa town before the concert. Old Taipa is a small place near the Venetian full of cute alleys with souvenirs and eateries. We found this really cool traditional restaurant with kitschy decor but it was closed. We ended up having yummy African Chicken with crispy bread at this modern looking place with high ceilings and cool old tile floors instead.

Traditional kitschy Portuguese restaurant in Old Taipa town

A chic modern restaurant with cool old tile floors

We found an atmospheric junkyard on the way to the Venetian and decided it would be a great location to snap some pics so we scrambled inside and got mud all over our heels trying to get some futuro-destructo Mad Max pics.

When we got to the Venetian, the venue was pretty empty. The crowd that was there was similar to the crowd at Clockenflap. The lesbian contingent was also well represented as Peaches is a gay icon.

It’s really annoying to see the lack of interest for alternative music in Hong Kong. It was the same for Rock Raiser at Cyberport, and the same for the outdoor concert at the West Kowloon biennale. Does everyone in Hong Kong just want to hear the Black-Eyed Peas?

For lovers of alternative music who missed this show, you should really regret it. It’s not that often that a high-caliber performance artist like Peaches comes to play in Asia at such an intimate venue. Her performance was sheer brilliance and really exceeded my expectations. Despite the fact that there wasn’t a huge heaving crowd, she still brought it 210 percent as if she was playing to a crowd of thousands. Now that is a true entertainer!

Since we were some of the first people there, the organizer had asked me if I knew anyone who wanted to dance on stage with Peaches when she performed her 2nd song ‘Talk to Me’. Though I knew it would take a little courage to get up there (and perhaps a lot cocktails), I had to volunteer my services. I mean how often do you get to share a stage with such an exceptional performance artist! But, then again, perhaps that was the intimidating part…

Me and the other volunteer back-up dancer went backstage to check out ‘wardrobe’ and it turned out that we had two choices- either we were going to wear a big t-shirt with a girl’s body in a bikini printed on it, or we actually just wore a black push-up bra and hotpants. We also had to wear these massive blonde dreadlock wigs which covered our faces. (Great! No one would have to know it was me!) In the end, Peaches just said we should wear out regular clothes. However I was wearing a pretty conservative dress so I borrowed a long fishnet shirt from a friend and decided to wear the bra and hotpants underneath.

Peaches’ manager, who is incidentally also the manager of Regurgitator, briefed us (very briefly) on how we should act and dance. He told us we had to ignore her when she tried to talk to us but neither of us remembered that bit since we were both tipsy and probably not listening due to the excitement of being backstage. We had a gander at Peaches’ wardrobe and it was fanstasmical! There was a gold cape, a leather-gorilla suit and a big fuchsia pink space-age leotard with massive shoulders.

On our way out, we spied Peaches who is actually quite small but has a huge presence and largesse of creative energy. She was chilling out and having a meal before getting on stage. She looked like she was drawing up energy from the universe to put on a big show for such a small audience.

A few hours later, it was time to get into our stage gear. Peaches walked out in her leather gorilla suit for the first song and we were instructed to wait for someone to escort us onstage. It was really fun dancing around, feeling the heat of the stage lights and not being able to see anyone. The only problem was we both forgot that we were supposed to ignore her!

Anyway after we got off stage, the real show began. Peaches urged everyone to come closer to the stage because she was planning on as much audience participation as possible. She then tested the water by jumping into the audience while the audience transported her around by their hands. When that was successful, she said, “Jesus walks on water, Peaches walks on you!” and proceeded to walk on the hands of the audience while singing a song. It was so wicked! I was kicking myself for not charging my camera battery as I would have loved to get video of it all!

She then changed into a leotard with a big fist on it with the middle finger extended down towards her crotch. Before anyone knew it she appeared on top of the bar all the way in the back. The entire crowd ran to the back while she prompted people to sing along. People were going crazy taking photos and singing “Shake yer dix, Shake your tits! MC Goldmountain was dancing next to me in awe and proclaiming, “I waited 10 years to see Peaches!”

At one point, I overheard some young boys saying to each other- “She’s old but I’d still tap that. Would you?” Incidentally this what when she was singing “Mother fuckers wanna get with me ...Lay with me, love with me, all right.”

She kept the audience guessing at every turn. Just when you thought it couldn’t get more interesting, she would pull out something new. She twirled a gold rope chain around her neck hula-hoop style, she faked falling down, being injured and spit fake blood on the audience, she came out with fake plastic breasts and a blinking light on her crotch. It was such sheer and utter genius that the audience stomped for more until she came back on for 2 encores.

At one point she said, “I’m going to judge where the best place to play in Asia is by how many people take off their shirts!” People began disrobing and throwing their shirts on stage, but this is Hong Kong and some people were like “Oh no- not me!” In the end she put all the shirts on and walked off stage.

On the boat trip back home, it was obvious that the audience members were exhausted from all the dancing, screaming, stomping and running back and forth. However towards the end of the ferry ride, one guy, harboring some frustrated rockstar dreams, disturbed everyone’s slumber by singing out loud to some random song on his Ipod. He was so out of tune and no one told him to shut up. In fact, most people found it amusing. Well at least he was not wearing a neon pink leotard.
 
See all the photos from Peaches at the Venetian here.

http://www.hiphongkong.com/galleries/party_photos/peaches_venetian_macau

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