Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Peaches (opening for NIN/Bauhaus)
2006-06-24

what a novel concept for a band...girls with balls.
local product Peaches returned to Toronto to shock and ahhhhhh! the hometown crowd.
she's not a shy girl, she's not a coy girl, and she's put that 'homo' stuff on the back burner for now. she's what you might call 'omni-sexual' - all-inclusive and non-discriminatory. she'll cross that bridge when she comes to it...or she won't, as the mood fits. it's a new generation of youngun's, who have 'friends with benefits' and whatnot.
growing up in a Toronto suburb wouldn't seem to be the place you'd develop a persona that pushes the envelope for even the most subversive amongst us. (well, not counting Carole Pope) Peaches owes a little to the trail blazed by Rough Trade in the '80's and Bif Naked in the '90's. well, a trail across the Canadian landscape anyway. she honed her ho' skills in Berlin and LA and tonight she's gonna treat her family.
pretty sure it's her family. there's only 7 of us in the seats at the cavernous Molson Amphitheatre as show time nears. i skirt by security to find a quiet place to set up the taping rig and turn it on. it's bright light out here and i'm seated right beside the soundboard. won't have cover of darkness until NIN comes on around 9:15 pm. on my way back to my seat, with beer and water in hand, the usherette asks for my ticket. "you gotta be kidding me, right?" I ask, somewhat incredually. "she needs to see your ticket," the security guard answers, perhaps thinking I'd not understood the instruction. "i just walked past here 5 minutes ago. there's no one in the seats and certainly no one who's 50 years old," I mutter as I put my drinks down to fish for my ticket.
it's a thankless job being the first of three bands in a large venue. you don't have a lot of time and during most of your set the seats are filling up to about half full. lot's of milling about and not much attention being paid. my son was in the pit and said the band sounded fine, looked even better, but didn't get near the respect it deserved.
it helps to have a flamboyant personality and Peaches has plenty of that as she explodes on the stage with a cut from her soon-to-be-released new album. The one minute long "Fuck or Kill" contains the album title in it's punchy 'impeach my bush' chant. now there's a title that should attract a little attention, and less airplay, down south.
down south is where most of her songs take place. not the borderline. the beltline. fever-in-my-pocket time. second song Hit It Hard moves into an answer song to Jan & Dean called "Two Boys (For Every Girl). which should make it about even.
Peaches reaches back to 'Teaches of Peaches' for the little homage to frottage called Hot Rod before we slam into some ER from ET in "Operate".
more hard-rockin' nonsense, and that's not a bad thing, in Rock Show. as vapid and empty a head-banging song as you'd expect any male to put out. more power to her. probably something she learned from Joan Jett. women got as much right as men to create songs that s*ck.
the tide turns with another new offering, Boys Wanna Be Her. don't have all the lyrics down but there's more possibility in the title than you could hope for.
show closes with Peaches wrapped in a triple XXX shawl for "You Love It (when I'm bad)" and who could argue with that?
she strips down to pink bra and panties for a romp through the crowd, not just the pit but the seated audience as well, while she belts out "Fuck the Pain Away" for the finale.

not just another night at the opera.

Check out their website for pics and more

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