Went to see Peaches at the London Astoria on Sunday night. Both good and bad – had mixed feelings about this gig, even though I reckon I enjoyed it.

London Astoria

The evening almost got off to a dreadful start. I bought tickets through the Mean Fidler web site, and opted to pick them up at the venue. Big mistake! They wouldn’t let me collect tickets there. We had to go in straight away, which kind of killed our attempts to meet up with people and go to the pub. A tricky attempt to get us to buy their over priced cans of beer. Having none of that. Tip: get your tickets delivered, buy from another place, buy them on the door, or be more organised and meet up with friends before buying tickets.

The Gig

Pink Grease

We missed the first two bands, but made it in time to see Pink Grease. I felt a bit like yer Dad – seen it all before – and wasn’t particularly impressed, but everyone else seemed to like them.

Peaches

I have been a fan of Peaches ever since my cousin told me I had to buy her album Teaches of Peaches. It blew me away. Peaches sings dirty songs about sex, and they have a great electro beat that resonates around your head. Her latest album, the charmingly titled Fatherfucker is slightly rockier in feel, and so was the gig. This was a disapointment. When I saw Peaches a couple of years ago at 93 Feet East it literally resulted in a nose bleed. Unfortunately, however heavy Peaches pitches her rock, it is never going to reach the level of her electro.

During most songs Peaches was flanked by two extremely tall cabaret dancers, be-cocked with Matthesons sausages or peeled bananas. These two proceeded to tie peaches up and chase her around the stage in some sort of lesbo-masochist Benny Hill romp scene. One of the caberat girls put on a spectacular hula-hoop dance, which probably got as load a round of applausee as any of the songs did.

Sadly Peaches made some glaring errors in the concert. She invited members of the audience onto the stage to sing along with Fuck the Pain Away, her most punch packing song – this reminded me of the New Kids on the Block getting a teary eyed teeny on stage to ballad her to death. In her duet with Iggy Pop, Iggy just looked like he didn’t want to be there. Not that he was. Peaches dueted with a video projection of him.

Sadly she covered some songs that no one knew and that weren’t packed with energy. The gig was punctuated by the crowd stopping dancing and wondering what they were listening too. They hadn’t come here for this.

The blood spitting stunt I remembered from 93 Feet East just looked lame this time around. Before she pretended to have bitten Taylor Savvy’s prick off, but this time it was just some sort of belly ache. Rock and Roll!

At the end of the gig Peaches announced that she had been told she could only do one more song by the venue manager. She went on to do – one more song. Great act of rebellion when the crowd wanted more, and there were plenty of tracks unplayed from both albums that I know she does great live.

That aside it was still a good gig – everyone enjoyed it. But it was tinged with sadness, since it is apparent that with growing appeal, Peaches isn’t destined to get any better. Great music. Performance somehow lacking. Apart from the Hula-hoops.